According to Human Rights Watch: "Human Rights Watch documented numerous cases of torture at the Nampala military camp in Ségou region. Human Rights Watch interviewed 26 detainees who said they had suffered torture and other ill-treatment, and were witnesses to other cases of severe mistreatment in military camps. Most of these cases occurred in the first half of 2015. [...] A farmer, 46, accused of hiding arms described being tortured in the presence of an army officer in the Diabaly military camp in April: They tied me, then locked me up for hours in an armored car, parked in the sun. I couldn’t breathe and felt on fire from the heat. During interrogation, they put a gun and Quran in front of me, asking, “Do you know these things? Where are the guns?” They fired behind my back one time and said, “If you don’t tell us where the jihadists are, you will die.” An officer said, “I’m in charge here, and if this method isn’t sufficient, we’ll try something else.” They stripped me to my underwear, then hung me upside down from a tree for over an hour, beating and questioning me all the while. “All you Peuhl are in touch with them” [they said]. I lost consciousness, and woke up inside the armored car. Later, one soldier put a knife to my neck, cutting it slightly, but another stopped him. Then I was punched in the face. Like that, I was interrogated five times. I bled on my back, and from my eye. It only stopped after reaching the gendarmerie in Niono, where I saw several other men who had also been beaten by the FAMA; one so badly he couldn’t move. The gendarmes took us to the clinic. After seeing the judge, he let most of us go, saying our dossiers were empty. The soldiers are incapable of finding the jihadists who are harming us, so they go after us." [...] As has been the case since 2012, the vast majority of detainees said the abuse stopped after they were handed over to government gendarmes. Several torture victims described heated discussions when gendarmes observed the signs of abuse or torture. One said: “When the gendarme saw our open wounds, that we could barely walk, he screamed at the soldiers, ‘Look at what you’ve done to these people! You have no right to do this, rebel or not. Is this normal? Were you not trained?’” Several victims said they were taken for medical treatment to a local clinic, and that gendarmes insisted that medical certificates of their injuries received while in army custody be included in their legal dossiers. Human Rights Watched documented fewer cases of mistreatment when people were arrested by soldiers accompanied by gendarmes who have the mandated role of provost marshal. When asked why gendarmes are not always present in military operations, a Defense Ministry official told Human Right Watch: “They can’t be everywhere, and the mistreatment often happens in isolated places.” ^[+]