Al-Qaida-linked militants have killed at least 64 people in twin attacks on an army base and a crowded passenger boat on the Niger River in northern Mali.
Extremists from the Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) appear to have targeted the Timbuktu boat on the river and an army position at Bamba, in the northern Gao region, with “a provisional toll of 49 civilians and 15 soldiers killed”, according to a government statement.
Earlier, the Malian army said on social media that the boat was attacked by “armed terrorist groups”.
The assaults on Thursday were “claimed” by JNIM, which was formed from a series of local al-Qaida affiliates six years ago, and will refocus attention on the strategically important but increasingly unstable Sahel region.
Mali has suffered a surge in violence since a military takeover in 2021 and is now one of the countries worst-hit by extremism in the central Sahel, which is the region of the world most affected by terrorism, according to recent figures compiled by Institute for Economics and Peace, a global thinktank.
A series of military coups across the Sahel have overturned democratically elected governments in the last two years, leading to the withdrawal of western troops from several. In Mali, a large French deployment has been replaced by a much smaller force of Russian mercenaries from the Kremlin-linked Wagner group.
Civilians have suffered most, both from Islamic militants and in often indiscriminate government offensives.
The Niger River is a vital transport link in a region where road infrastructure is poor and there are no railways. It is unclear what form the attack on the passenger boat took, but its operator, Comanav, said the vessel, plying an established route between cities along the river, was targeted by at least three rockets that aimed at its engines.
It is thought the boat might have sunk rapidly or the rockets may have started a lethal fire.
The attack came after another al-Qaida-linked faction, the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM), announced last month that it was blockading Timbuktu, the historic crossroads city of northern Mali. There have also been attacks on villages by Islamic extremists in the central Mopti region.
Mali has been struggling with insecurity since 2012, when a revolt led by ethnic Tuaregs erupted in the troubled north. The insurgency was exploited by Islamic militants, who three years later took their own campaign into neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso.
In northern Mali, the regional rebellion was formally ended by a peace agreement signed between the rebels and the Malian government in 2015. However, the fragile deal came under strain after the civilian government was toppled in 2020.
Tensions in the region have revived in recent weeks after the 13,000-strong UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, which has been told to leave by the year’s end, handed over two bases near Timbuktu to the armed forces.
The handover triggered clashes between the army and the jihadists and led to an angry showdown with the former rebels, stoking fears for the 2015 peace agreement.
There have also been raids on previously peaceful villages by extremists within days of the UN pulling out of local bases in central Mali.
The local Islamic State affiliate has almost doubled the territory it controls in Mali in less than a year, and is capitalising on the deadlock and perceived weakness of armed groups that signed the 2015 peace agreement, United Nations experts said in a report.
Much of the violence in Mali is driven by the rivalry between the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara and JNIM, the two main extremist groups.
“The government of Mali watches from a distance the confrontations between Islamic State in the Greater Sahara and Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin,” the UN report said.
“The government appears to believe that, over time, the confrontation between Islamic State in the Greater Sahara and Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin in the north will benefit Malian authorities. [But] the passage of time appears to favour the terrorist groups, whose military capacities and community penetration grow each day,” the experts wrote.
Analysts say the violence in the Sahel has its roots in a intractable mix of acute political, social, economic and environmental crises.
The United Nations’ top humanitarian official has warned that the Sahel region is at the centre of accelerating climate change and “a canary in the coalmine of our warming planet”.
Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
