![Amina, 37, prepares food with two of her five children in a displacement camp, after fleeing her village of Tchoma Bangou as a result of an attack in which more than 100 people were killed and granaries were burned, Tillabéri region, Niger, 1 August 2021. “In my family, they killed 12 people,” she told Amnesty International. “We miss our village so much, our presence here [in the camp] is just to save our lives.”](/cdn-cgi/image/onerror=redirect,width=640,height=640,format=webp/https://storage.googleapis.com/uploads.mongoosehq.com/url/media/51203226/723b670be53303aeecbb699460ecf118ec6de48b3e386da063547a3105ed7fe4)
Overview
- The three military-led governments issued a joint statement calling the court an "instrument of neo-colonial repression" and accusing it of selective justice.
- They said they will pursue "indigenous mechanisms for the consolidation of peace and justice" instead of relying on The Hague.
- The countries are fighting armed groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, while their forces have been accused by rights groups and UN experts of abuses that may amount to war crimes.
- Mali has been under an ICC investigation since 2013 into alleged war crimes in the northern regions of Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal.
- The trio have left ECOWAS, formed the Alliance of Sahel States, cut back Western defense ties, and strengthened relations with Russia, whose president is under an ICC arrest warrant.