At least 19 civilians were killed in a French airstrike in central Mali in January, according to a U.N. report seen Tuesday by Agence France-Presse (AFP), which added that the victims were protected under international law.
On Jan. 3, French warplanes struck near the remote village of Bounti in circumstances that sparked controversy in the war-torn Sahel state. Residents of the village said the strike hit a wedding party and killed civilians.
But France's military rejected the accusation and said it had killed extremists. It also denied that a wedding had taken place in Bounti that day.
The country's defense ministry said on Tuesday that the French strike in Mali had targeted only armed terrorists and said it had reservations about the methodology used in the compilation of a U.N. report about the case.
"The defense ministry reaffirms strongly that on January 3 French armed forces made an airstrike targeting an armed terrorist group, identified as such," the ministry said in a statement, according to Reuters.
The United Nations mission in Mali, known as MINUSMA, subsequently launched an investigation into the affair. In a report summarizing the probe's findings seen by AFP Tuesday, the U.N. said a wedding had in fact taken place and had "gathered about 100 civilians at the site of the strike."
It added that about five armed people, who are thought to be members of the extremist group Katiba Serma, attended the celebrations. At least 22 people died in the French strike, of whom 19 were civilians, according to the probe.
"The group affected by the strike was overwhelmingly composed of civilians who are protected persons under international humanitarian law," the report said. "This strike raises serious concerns about respect for the principles of the conduct of hostilities," it added.
The U.N. report is based on 115 individual interviews and constitutes a rare criticism of the actions of French forces in Mali. Investigators also conducted group interviews and about 100 telephone interviews.
Mali has been struggling to contain an insurgency that first broke out in the north of the country in 2012 before spreading to the center and neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger.
France, the former colonial power, intervened in Mali in 2013 to beat back the extremists, and now has some 5,100 soldiers deployed across the semi-arid Sahel region. Central Mali, where the strike on Bounti occurred, is an epicenter of the brutal conflict.
