NEW YORK: The UN Security Council’s approval of armed intervention into Mali risks worsening the human rights and humanitarian crisis in the north, Amnesty International said on Friday.

The Council voted unanimously on Thursday to authorise an African-led force with “use all necessary measures” at its disposal to take back the country’s north from “terrorist, extremist and armed groups”.

“An international armed intervention is likely to increase the scale of human rights violations we are already seeing in this conflict,” said Salvatore Saguès, Amnesty International’s researcher on West Africa Civilians in the north are already suffering under the rule of the armed Islamist groups that have controlled the region since April 2012.

Amnesty International fears that during the intervention, indiscriminate attacks, arbitrary detentions, torture, extrajudicial executions, and the use of child soldiers by both sides, could become even more widespread.