“Terrorists (…) killed at least 20 civilians in towns in the Ansawatz community on Saturday,” a local police official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
A new outbreak of violence has swept through northern Mali: gunmen have killed at least 20 civilians near the city of Gao, and a United Nations blue helmet has been killed in Kindal as the security situation in the Sahel state deteriorates.
“Terrorists (…) killed at least 20 civilians in towns in the Ansawatz community on Saturday, a few dozen kilometers from Gao,” a police official in the area told AFP by telephone on condition of anonymity.
Another Bamako police officer, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that “about 20 civilians were killed Saturday in Ebak, 35 kilometers north of Gao, and in neighboring communities,” citing “gunfire.” criminals”.
“Jihadists killed 24 civilians in the Ansawatz community on Saturday. “There is general panic,” said a local official.
No other source confirmed that it was jihadist action.
But in the vast Sahel region, jihadist attacks linked to the so-called Islamic State in the Sahara (ISS) are becoming more frequent and their scope is growing.
The scant information from the remote and inaccessible area indicates that hundreds of civilians have been killed and thousands displaced in recent months in the Menaka district, near the Niger border, and in Gao, further west.
Last Wednesday, the Azawad Salvation Movement (KSA), one of the organizations fighting the jihadists, reported that 22 people had been killed by gunmen in the Izingaz community near Menaka. No other source confirmed or denied the information.
“Terrorist threat”
An elected official in the Gao district described the “very worrying situation in the Ansawatz community” on Sunday: many citizens have fled to escape the atrocities of “jihadists” in villages.
“Part of Gao and Menaka districts have been ‘occupied by jihadists,'” he said. “The state must do something.”
The area has been the scene of violent attacks since the outbreak of the Mali conflict in 2012, when armed rebel groups revolted against Bamako. In 2015, a peace agreement was signed – which remains unimplemented.
In addition to these armed organizations, jihadist movements, which swear allegiance to either Al Qaeda or the Islamic State, also operate in the region, often targeting state symbols, those they accuse of supporting it, and each other for territorial control.
Groups involved in the trafficking of various species and other gangs are also present in the area, which is largely covered by desert and where the state is almost non-existent.
The security situation in the Gao and Menaka regions has “deteriorated rapidly” recently, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in his latest report.
“The terrorist threat continues to spread,” he said, expressing concern about the “absence” of a stable “presence of security forces and public administration” in the area.
Blue helmet dead
In Gao, there are Mali army forces, UN blue helmets (of the MINUSMA mission, which has 13,000 troops) and French army men participating in the Barhan mission.
The latter, who began their gradual departure from Mali earlier this year, are expected to have permanently left their base in Gao, the last enclave where they are still present, “by the end of the summer”, according to the French General Staff.
On Sunday morning, a member of the UN peacekeeping force, a Guinean military, was killed when a landmine exploded in the north of Kindal as he took part in a patrol to locate and clear landmines, according to MINUSMA.
The new death of the blue helmet is recorded in the middle of tense negotiations for the renewal of the mandate of this mission. MINUSMA is the peacekeeping force that has suffered the most casualties of any in history: since its inception in 2013, 175 of its blue helmets have been killed in enemy action.
In Mali, a poor, enclave of the Sahel, two military coups took place in August 2020 and May 2021. The political crisis is exacerbated by an increasingly serious security crisis.
