At least fifteen civilians, including at least ten children, were killed yesterday Sunday in drone strikes in northern Mali, according to convergent sources, nearly a month after the Malian Armed Forces (MAF) and their Russian backers suffered a heavy defeat at the hands of separatists and jihadists.

“The army of the Mali junta and the Russian mercenaries of the Wagner company (…) launched strikes with drones that came from Burkina Faso in Tenzawaten, a few meters from the territory of Algeria,” the separatists said, giving a provisional account that reason for 21 civilian deaths, among them 11 children, dozens injured and “huge material damage”.

A “pharmacy” was initially targeted, followed by strikes against “people gathered” in the area where the first strike was launched, according to Tuareg separatist spokesman Mohamed Elmaoulud Ramadan.

A local elected official told AFP that at least 15 people were killed and that the victims were “only” civilians.

According to an NGO official in the area, “at least 20 people, among them children, were killed yesterday by drone fire” and “we have no news about other civilians”.

A retired civil servant in the community said more than twenty dead were counted.

In late July, separatists and jihadists announced that they had killed dozens of Wagner members and Malian soldiers in fighting in this very community, Tenzawaten, near the Algerian border in the northeastern tip of the Sahel country.

EDMA and Wagner admitted that they suffered large losses, without however announcing specific accounts.

It was the heaviest defeat Wagner has suffered in combat in Africa, according to analysts.

In Tenzawaten “a battle was lost”, but “we will never lose the war against the terrorists”, the prime minister of the junta, Sokel Kokala Maiga, had assured.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, for his part, reaffirmed that Moscow stands “firmly” by Bamako’s side after the heavy defeat.

The military responded in the days that followed by launching drone raids on the community, killing many civilians, especially foreign gold miners. The separatists claimed “dozens of deaths, mainly Hausa from Niger and (nationals of) Chad”

The armed forces of Mali have assured that this “air campaign” is carried out “in coordination with the armed forces of Burkina Faso” based on the “solidarity of the member states of the Alliance of Sahel States” and in implementation of “the mechanism of collective defense and mutual assistance ».

The military junta in Mali under Colonel Assimi Goita decided in 2022 to break with France and its European partners, turning to Russia for military and political support.

It founded, along with Burkina Faso and Niger, countries that also rule military regimes, the Sahelian Alliance of States (SAS) after withdrawing in January from the Economic Community of West African States (CEDEAO in French, ECOWAS in English).

Armed separatist groups lost control of communities in northern Mali after a large-scale army offensive was launched in late 2023, culminating in the capture of the city of Kindal, a stronghold of the separatist movement and a major threat to the central state.

The operations in the north of the country have been followed by allegations of a spate of atrocities against the civilian population by the armed forces and their Russian allies since 2022, which authorities in Bamako deny.

Last Saturday, the authorities in Mali decided to suspend the broadcast of the French news television network LCI in the country for two months, accusing it because an affiliate of it spread what they said was “false accusations” against the armed forces and their Russian allies.