Jihadists advance in northeast Mali as civilians flee

Sources there claim that as the Islamic State group’s jihadists advance in northern Mali, panicked residents are being forced to evacuate their homes.

In March, the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) began an attack in the Gao and Menaka districts, sparking fierce combat between them and other jihadists.

A human rights advocate who spoke on the condition of anonymity to AFP through WhatsApp warned that jihadis will eventually take over the entire region.

Witnesses and other sources reached by AFP corroborated the ISGS’s persistent drive in this isolated and perilous region, and rights activists claim that people have been slaughtered.

Gao and Menaka, two important cities, have long been at the center of Mali’s ten-year Islamist struggle.

Since 2012, an insurgency that has extended to the nearby nations of Niger and Burkina Faso has claimed thousands of lives and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes.

Malian army officers staged a coup in 2020 as a result of their despair at the death toll.

Russian paramilitaries were introduced by the junta, which forced France to withdraw its troops who had been fighting terrorists for nine years.

Massacres

Outside of the two cities, the area is primarily desert and home to nomads.

Between 2012 and 2015, they took the brunt of the Tuareg conflicts with the Malian army.
They are currently trapped in the crossfire between the ISGS and a jumble of armed organizations on one side.

The latter group consists of al-Qaida jihadists, separatist militants who agreed to a peace agreement with the government in 2015, and Tuareg warriors who support the government but had previously battled the separatist organizations.

Communities suspected of aiding the enemy or refusing to join the jihadists have reportedly been the target of repeated attacks, according to the U.N. and NGOs.

Human Rights Watch said last month that ISGS militants had massacred hundreds of people.

In an attack on a camp for displaced persons on Monday outside Gao, gunmen on motorcycles killed eleven people, according to local authorities and relief workers, according to AFP.

A “climate of dread” was present, according to Moussa Ag Acharatoumane, leader of the loyalist Movement for the Safety of Azawad.

The roads have been damaged, and all business activity has ceased, he claimed.

He said that the situation was “an unparalleled humanitarian disaster” and warned that Menaka was being overrun by displaced people.

In his district, the Menaka administrative region’s mayor claimed that “nobody is left.”

A U.N.
A paper published this month said that approximately 60,000 migrants had landed in the town of Gao.

According to a number of accounts, the jihadis occupied the space left vacant when France withdrew its troops from the area.

The violence stops at the border with neighboring Niger.

Foreign forces, including France’s Barkhane mission, are assisting the Nigeri army on the ground and in the air.

According to a local elected official who has fled to Bamako, the army’s position in the town of Menaka on the Malian side has “left the path open” for the jihadists.

Stoning

He and others gave a horrifying picture of life in regions controlled by jihadis.

The official declared, “If you’re not with them, you’re against them.”

Villages taken by the terrorists are subject to a harsh application of Islamic rule and are required to pay an Islamic tax.

An unmarried couple, age 50 and 36, were stoned to death in the village of Tin-Hama in September, according to a humanitarian worker in Ansongo.

The informant claimed that on the day of the weekly market, “they dug a trench and put [them]… in it up to their hips and then flung rocks at them.”

According to a security source in Niger, pro-government troops are attempting to enlist foreign assistance for their cause.

One suggestion is to join forces with the once rebellious members of the Coordination of Azawad Movements and the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM), a shady organization run by Iyad Ag Ghali, a Tuareg with ties to al-Qaida.

The likelihood of forging a united front, though, is slim, according to one African diplomat in Bamako.

The ambassador stated, “Politically, it would seem quite a reach for anybody to openly partner up with al-Qaida now.

VOA