INSURGENT ASSAULTS IN MALI RESULTED IN THE DEATHS OF 49 CIVILIANS AND 15 SOLDIERS

Fri 08 September 2023:

Armed groups assaulted a passenger ship and a military installation, killing at least 49 civilians and 15 troops. In addition, the attack claimed the lives of about 50 attackers, according to Mali’s armed forces,

“On September 7, 2023, at around 11am [11:00 GMT], armed terrorist groups with fatal designs attacked a boat from COMANAV [a ferry operator] between Abakoira and Zorghoi, in the territory of Rarhous,” Mali’s military said in a statement on social media, referencing towns in the central part of the country.

The boat had been travelling on the Niger River. COMANAV said in a separate statement that “at least three rockets” had targetted the vessel, aiming at its engines.

Malian army spokesman Souleymane Dembélé attributed the high death toll to the inability of some of the boat’s passengers to swim, suggesting some might have drowned.

A separate attack targeted an army installation further east in the Bourem Circle, part of the Gao region.

With Thursday’s death toll yet to be finalised and many more injured in the attacks, Mali’s interim government declared three days of national mourning. Since its 2021 coup d’etat, Mali has been led on an interim basis by Colonel Assimi Goita.

A group affiliated with al-Qaeda has claimed credit for both attacks, according to the AFP.

Al-Qaida-affiliated and Islamic State-linked groups have almost doubled the territory they control in Mali in less than a year, the United Nations said in a report last month, as they take advantage of a weak government and of armed groups that signed a 2015 peace agreement.

The stalled implementation of the peace deal and sustained attacks on communities have offered the IS group and al-Qaida affiliates a chance “to re-enact the 2012 scenario,” the report said.

The deadly attacks come as the U.N. prepares to withdraw its 17,000-member peacekeeping mission, MINUSMA, from Mali at the government’s request. The pullout is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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