(Dakar) Northern Mali again caught in the spiral of violence: armed men killed at least 20 civilians near the city of Gao and a peacekeeper died on Sunday in Kidal, in the north of this Sahelian country where the security situation is deteriorating.
Updated yesterday at 6:46 p.m.
“Criminal terrorists murdered at least twenty civilians on Saturday in several hamlets in the town of Anchawadj”, a few tens of kilometers north of Gao, a regional police official told AFP by telephone under cover. of anonymity.
Another police officer in Bamako, also on condition of anonymity, confirmed “the assassination on Saturday of around twenty civilians in Ebak, 35 km north of Gao, and in neighboring localities”, referring to “an act perpetrated by armed criminals.
“Jihadists murdered 24 civilians in the commune of Anchawadj on Saturday. There is general panic,” said a local authority.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres “strongly” condemned the attack in a statement. It “recalls that attacks targeting peacekeepers may constitute war crimes under international law and that their perpetrators are liable to prosecution”.
No other source confirmed that the jihadists were the perpetrators of the attacks.
But in this immense Sahelian region, attacks by jihadists affiliated with the Islamic State group in the greater Sahara (EIGS) are more and more frequent and their field of action is widening.
The meager information coming from this remote and difficult-to-reach area reports hundreds of civilians killed and thousands displaced in recent months in the regions of Ménaka, near the border with Niger, and Gao further west.
On Wednesday, the Movement for the Salvation of Azawad (MSA), one of the groups fighting against the jihadists, assured that 22 people had been killed by “armed men” in the locality of Izingaz, in the region of Ménaka. No other source has confirmed or denied the information.
“Terrorist Threat”
The elected representative of the Gao region described Sunday “a very worrying situation in the town of Anchawadj” with many civilians fleeing the exactions “of the jihadists” in the neighboring villages.
“A good part of the Gao region and that of Ménaka” is “occupied by jihadists”, he continued. “The state must do something”.
This region has been the scene of violence since the start of the conflict in 2012, when armed rebel groups rose up against Bamako. In 2015, they signed a peace agreement with Mali, which is still struggling to be applied.
In addition to these armed groups, jihadist movements – affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State organization – operate in the area, fighting against the symbols of the state, those they accuse of supporting it, as well as each other. for territorial control.
Traffickers and other bandits are also present in this desert region where the state is almost non-existent.
The security situation has recently “severely deteriorated” in the Gao and Ménaka regions, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in his latest report.
The “terrorist threat continues to [s’y] expand”, he lamented, expressing concern about “the absence of a sustained presence of the security forces and the public administration in these areas”.
peacekeeper slain
Malian soldiers, blue helmets from the UN Mission in Mali (MINUSMA, 13,000 soldiers) and French soldiers from Operation Barkhane are based in Gao.
The latter, who began a gradual withdrawal from Mali at the beginning of the year, must definitively leave the base of Gao, the last enclave where they are still present in Mali, “at the end of the summer”, according to the state – French major.
On Sunday morning, a Guinean peacekeeper was killed in the explosion of a mine in Kidal, further north, while he was taking part in a security patrol in a mine search and detection operation, according to the Minusma.
This new death comes in a tense context of negotiations on the renewal of the mandate of Minusma, the UN peacekeeping mission having suffered the most human losses.
Since its creation in 2013, 175 Blue Helmets have died in hostile acts.
Mali, a poor and landlocked country in the heart of the Sahel, was the scene of two military coups in August 2020 and May 2021. The political crisis goes hand in hand with a serious ongoing security crisis since 2012 and the outbreak of separatist and jihadist insurgencies in the north.