The government observes three days of mourning in memory of the scores of victims in assaults that an Al-Qaeda-affiliated group has claimed responsibility for.
The interim administration of Mali, a country in West Africa, reported that on Thursday, Islamist terrorists assaulted a military installation and a passenger boat, killing at least 64 people, including 49 civilians, and wounded numerous others. The statement also noted the deaths of about 50 alleged Islamist insurgents.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 15 soldiers were killed during a raid on a camp of the Malian Armed Forces (FAMas) in Bamba, in the Gao Region. However, the ministry stressed that this death toll was provisional.
A passenger boat carrying civilians from Gao to Mopti across the Niger River is said to have also been struck by the militants.
The ministry reported that “terrorists from the Support Group for Islam and Muslims,” a group associated with Al-Qaeda, had claimed responsibility for both attacks. About 50 of the attackers were killed by FAMas “in response to this double attack,” the officials claimed.
Authorities in Bamako, the nation’s capital and former French colony’s largest city, have additionally proclaimed three days of national mourning to begin on Friday in response to the most recent incident.
The Support Group for Islam and Muslims, the local militia that has been blamed for the attack on the civilian boat that resulted in the deaths of up to 50 civilians, is claimed to have organised a blockade around the Malian city of Timbuktu since last month.
According to a report from Human Rights Watch in July, armed groups have been responsible for a large-scale killing, rape, and looting spree in northeastern Mali villages this year that has caused thousands of residents to flee the Menaka and Gao districts.
Since 2012, Mali has been battling an Islamist insurgency, with significant assistance from the French army, which became involved in the conflict in 2013 as a result of an uptick in violence in the nation’s north.
However, early this year, the army-led government in Bamako requested that France remove its troops from the Sahel nation “without delay,” stating that French military involvement there was “unsatisfactory.”
A deadline of December 31 has also been set by the military authorities for the 15,000 peacekeepers assigned to the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Mali (MINUSMA). Officials in Mali claim that tensions are only becoming worse because of the UN’s presence there.
