On the afternoon of October 25, Cheick Oumar Diallo chatted with companions on a street in Mali’s capital, Bamako. Suddenly, four gendarmes arrived in a pickup truck and motorbikes, arrested him, and drove off.
A week later, Diallo—a 43-year-old former trade union member and prominent critic of Mali’s military junta—has not been seen and his whereabouts remain unknown.
Witnesses said that the gendarmes told Diallo they had orders to arrest him. When he asked why he was being detained, they refused to explain. A scuffle broke out as Diallo resisted and he tried to flee. While running, he fell into a ditch and hurt his leg. Witnesses said the gendarmes pulled Diallo from the ditch and tossed him into the back of their pickup.
Diallo’s colleagues said they searched for him in police and gendarmerie stations across Bamako to no avail. They believe his disappearance is linked to his union activism and criticism of the junta.
Diallo is a former employee of the Mali national water company, member of the company’s autonomous union, and a whistleblower. In a July 2024 public letter, he alleged that the water Malians consume was not potable. The authorities arrested him shortly thereafter and, upon his release in May 2025 the state-run water company fired him.
The junta has previously targeted trade unionists. On June 6, 2024, Mali’s main bank union launched a strike after the arrest of its secretary-general, Hamadoun Bah. Bah had been detained on charges of forgery and falsification linked to internal union disputes, an action widely seen by workers as political intimidation. After five days, Bah was releasedand the union called off the strike.
Since taking power in a 2021 military coup, Mali’s junta has carried out a relentless assault against the political opposition, peaceful dissent, civil society groups, and the media.
Diallo’s arrest bears the hallmarks of enforced disappearance, when a government arrests someone without acknowledging their detention or whereabouts, placing them outside the protection of the law. Enforced disappearances can violate a range of human rights, including prohibitions against arbitrary detention, torture and other ill-treatment, and extrajudicial execution.
Since 2009, Mali has been a party to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
Mali’s authorities should immediately disclose Diallo’s whereabouts, release him and stop their attacks on trade union members and other critics.
