Officials at the interim National Assembly in Mali have taken the junta’s line - denying the country has any involvement with Wagner - telling the BBC: "We have no links with this person. We do not know him personally. We have nothing to say about this”.

An official at Burkina Faso’s information ministry also denied any links with the Wagner boss.

While Guinean officials say they are not in the capacity to talk about the incident and are awaiting more details.

Officials in Central African Republic (CAR), where the mercenary outfit has worked since 2018, say they have little information and still doubt Prigozhin was on the plane that crashed near Moscow on Wednesday.

Earlier this week, Prigozhin appeared a video that was posted on Telegram, suggesting he was in Africa when it was recorded.

He said new Wagner fighters were being recruited for deployment to Africa so his group could make the continent “more free”.

Wagner has several thousand troops in at least five African countries – and has been accused of involvement in massacres in Mali as well as atrocities in CAR.