Wagner trained African militias to burn people with a lively body, the investigation said

According to an investigation, mercenaries of the Russian Wagner Group have taught African soldiers and militia officers to torture and strangle prisoners and even burn people with lively body.

The group founded by Jewgeni Prigoschin allegedly played a central role in a strategy of murders, torture and rape in the Central African Republic (Zar).

Investigations of the Sentry investigation group showed that Wagner had helped the President of the Central African Republic, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, to keep a terror campaign against its enemies, although the company pursued its own business interests.

In the past five years, the group had "perfected a plan for state conquest, supported a criminalized state that was hijacked by the Central African President and his closest circle, accumulates military power, securing access to valuable minerals and looting them with terror". .

Wagner's success in the country should be a template for the way the company does business in other countries, the researchers said.

"Mass murders, torture and rape"

Mr. Touadéra hired the group in 2018 to help rebels defense, and Wagner has completed similar business in Mali, Burkina Faso and Libya since then.

"Wagner, Touadéra and his closest circle carried out far-reaching, systematic and well-planned mass killing, torture and rape campaigns", the Sentry reported on interviews with more than 45 people, including 11 members of the armed forces of the Central African Republic.

A member of the presidential guard told the researchers: "It was a Russian trainer who gave the training ... she included command training, interrogation, aggressive techniques, torture, violence."

According to the report, soldiers and militia tons have been trained in cutting hands, fingers and legs; remove nails; use knives to cut meat; throw fuel and burn people with lively body; organize targeted kidnapping ".

The Sentry was co -founded by actor George Clooney and John Prendergast, a human rights activist, to examine the relationships between conflicts, money and corruption.

The senior consultant of Mr. Touadéra, Fidele Gouandjika, confirmed to Bloomberg that Wagner was present in the Central African Republic, but said that the country was not involved in military offensive or torture. He also denied that the forces of the Central African Republic were trained in such techniques or used them.

He said: "The Russian soldiers who are called in our country Wagner never go on the offensive. They do not attack."