Category Archives: Mali

Extremist Timbuktu Islamic police chief sentenced to 10 years in jail by ICC

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Al-Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud had been convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity

The international criminal court has sentenced an al-Qaida-linked extremist leader to 10 years in prison for war crimes and crimes against humanity carried out when he headed the Islamic police in Timbuktu in Mali, west Africa.

Al-Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud was convicted in June of torture, religious persecution and other inhumane acts. Judges found he was a “key figure” in a reign of terror after Islamic extremist rebels overran the ancient desert city in 2012.

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Australian goldminer to pay Mali $160m to free detained CEO and executives

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Group were held after a meeting about what mining firm referred to as unsubstantiated claims regarding taxes and levies

An Australian goldmining company has agreed to pay $160m ($A247m, £126m) to Mali’s government after the west African country’s junta detained its chief executive and two other employees.

Resolute Mining’s chief executive, Terence Holohan, and the other two employees were detained on 8 November in Mali’s capital, Bamako, at the end of a meeting with government officials over tax and other state claims that the miner had previously said were “unsubstantiated”.

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Almost two dozen countries at high risk of acute hunger, UN report reveals

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Sudan, South Sudan, Mali, Palestine and Haiti rated at level of highest concern in latest six-monthly analysis

Acute food insecurity is expected to worsen in war-stricken Sudan and nearly two dozen other countries and territories in the next six months, largely as a result of conflict and violence, an analysis by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Programme has found.

The latest edition of the twice-yearly Hunger Hotspots report, published on Thursday, provides early warnings on food crises and situations around the world where food insecurity is likely to worsen, with a focus on the most severe and deteriorating situations of acute hunger.

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Jihadist assault on Mali’s capital killed scores of people, say security sources

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Attacks in Bamako claimed by al-Qaida affiliate cast doubt on junta’s ability to tackle 12-year insurgency

Scores of people reportedly died in a jihadist attack in the Malian capital on Tuesday, again raising questions about the junta’s capacity to tackle a 12-year insurgency.

Islamic militants attacked a number of locations in Bamako, including an elite police training academy. The violence, which the al-Qaida affiliate Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) claimed to have carried out, led to the closure of the city’s airport for the day.

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Ukraine military intelligence claims role in deadly Wagner ambush in Mali

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Malian rebels ‘received necessary information’ to kill fighters from Russian military group last week, GUR says

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency has claimed it was involved in an ambush that killed fighters from Russia’s Wagner group in the west African nation of Mali, thousands of miles away from the frontline in Ukraine.

A Telegram channel linked to the Wagner leadership on Monday admitted the group had suffered heavy losses during fighting in Mali last week.

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Support for democracy in Africa falls amid military coups and corruption

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Africans still have stronger preference for democratic governance than many other parts of the world

Support for democracy is falling in Africa amid a string of military coups and dissatisfaction with corruption and mismanagement, according to a report by Afrobarometer. However, Africans still have a stronger preference for democratic governance than many parts of the world.

Two-thirds of people in 30 African countries prefer democracy, surveys conducted in 2021 or 2023 found, down seven percentage points from a decade earlier.

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Ecowas warns of ‘disintegration’ as juntas split from west African bloc

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Breakaway union by military rulers of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger exposes growing fissures within the region

The Ecowas grouping of west African countries has warned the region faces “disintegration” after three military rulers cemented their own breakaway union over the weekend.

Parallel meetings of Ecowas, or the Economic Community of West African States, on Sunday in Abuja and the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) – comprising Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger – in Niger’s capital, Niamey, on Saturday exposed growing fissures within the unstable region, pitting neighbours against each other.

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IS commander wanted for deaths of US forces in Niger killed in operation

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Malian state forces confirm death of Abu Huzeifa, who was believed to have helped carry out 2017 attack

A senior Islamic State group commander, wanted in connection with the deaths of US forces in Niger, has been killed in an operation by Malian state forces, the country’s army said.

Abu Huzeifa, known by the alias Higgo, was a commander in the group known as the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara. The state department had announced a reward of up to $5m for information about him.

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Lethal heatwave in Sahel worsened by fossil fuel burning, study finds

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Deaths from record temperatures in Mali reportedly led to full morgues turning away bodies this month


The deadly protracted heatwave that filled hospitals and mortuaries in the Sahel region of Africa earlier this month would have been impossible without human-caused climate disruption, a new analysis has revealed.

Mali registered the hottest day in its history on 3 April as temperatures hit 48.5C in the south-western city of Kayes. Intense heat continued across a wide area of the country for more than five days and nights, giving vulnerable people no time for recovery.

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Raiders kill at least a dozen worshippers at Burkina Faso church

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Atrocity took place during Sunday mass in Essakane village and has been blamed on a jihadi group active in the region

At least 15 people have been killed and two others injured in a “terrorist” attack on a Catholic church during Sunday mass in Burkina Faso, a senior church official has said.

Calling for peace and security in Burkina Faso, the vicar general of the Dori diocese, Jean-Pierre Sawadogo, denounced “those who continue to wreak death and desolation in our country”.

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African writer ruined by row with Graham Greene finally gets chance to shine

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Fifty years after being accused of plagiarism, book is reissued in a bid to rehabilitate gifted Malian author Yambo Ouologuem

In 1968 the books pages of the French newspaper Le Monde excitedly praised an uncompromising new novel, Bound to Violence, going on to salute its author as one of “the rare intellectuals of international stature presented to the world by Black Africa”.

The newspaper’s words, written in tribute to the young Malian writer Yambo Ouologuem, sound condescending today. Back then, however, the intended compliment was genuine and many European critics soon agreed: the publication of Ouologuem’s strange novel really did mark the arrival of a major new talent.

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France’s departure from Niger reflects years of failure in its former colonies

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Niger is only the latest of several west African countries to reject France’s long-standing attempts to interfere in the Sahel

When the French president, Emmanuel Macron, announced he would withdraw France’s ambassador and troops from Niger after a military takeover, the new regime welcomed a historic step forward for the country.

“Imperialist and neocolonialist forces are no longer welcome on our national territory,” it said. “The new era of cooperation, based on mutual respect and sovereignty, is already under way.”

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France to begin pulling out troops from Niger this week

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Paris says it is unable to work with putschists, leaving efforts to counter Islamists in Sahel in disarray

France will begin withdrawing troops from Niger this week following a coup in the west African country, in what marks a turning point in western nations’ efforts to counter a decade-long Islamist insurgency in the Sahel region.

“We will begin our disengagement operation this week, in good order, safely and in coordination with the Nigeriens,” the French military headquarters said.

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‘We need food and shelter’: farmers flee for their lives as terrorists attack villages in Mali

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Civilians who have been displaced by raids want to return home but say there is no protection for them there

There was no warning. The raiders came late in the night, shouting and shooting. The unarmed farmers of Bujo had no chance to defend themselves, and those who were too slow to flee died. By the morning, the villagers’ homes had been burned, livestock stolen and stores looted. They buried 17 victims in the communal graveyard and then walked the 15km to the nearby town of Bandiagara, where they remain.

The attack in mid-August was one of more than a dozen assaults last month on similar villages in a small area of central Mali that have killed at least 100 people and displaced tens of thousands.

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Mali jihadists kill dozens in twin attacks amid growing Islamist threat

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Group affiliated with al-Qaida target army base and Timbuktu river boat as violence surges in region

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.

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Could reported death of Wagner chief push African leaders closer to Kremlin?

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Smooth transition of mercenary group’s network and holdings in Africa may not be straightforward for Moscow

The reported death of the founder and leader of the Wagner group in a plane crash in Russia could have huge consequences for a motley crew of regimes and warlords across Africa, but also for hundreds of millions of ordinary people, the west and all the powers battling for influence on the continent.

Some analysts now suggest that the demise of Yevgeny Prigozhin may strengthen the Kremlin’s hand in Africa among powerful actors who have relied on Wagner’s loose network of shadowy companies and paramilitaries to bolster their own power – and impress others who may be thinking of doing the same.

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Military intervention in Niger is ‘last resort’, says west African bloc

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Defence chiefs demand reinstatement of president after coup, which triggered exodus of foreign nationals

Defence heads from west Africa’s regional political and security bloc have said a military intervention in junta-ruled Niger was “the last resort”, as European countries continued to evacuate foreign nationals after last week’s coup against its democratically elected president.

The 15-nation regional bloc Ecowas – the Economic Community of West African States – has threatened to use force to put down the coup in Niger after giving an ultimatum to those behind it to restore Mohamed Bazoum as president and reinstate the constitution and democratic institutions.

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Putin promises free grain to six African nations after collapse of Black Sea deal

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President says Russia will replace blocked Ukrainian exports after it abandoned pact on passage of ships

Vladimir Putin has promised free grain supplies to six African nations as Moscow seeks to capitalise on the collapse of the Black Sea grain deal.

Speaking on the first day of a Russia-Africa summit in St Petersburg, the Russian president claimed his country would be able to replace Ukrainian grain exports blocked by Moscow’s decision to abandon the UN-brokered arrangement which had allowed the export of grain and other products from Ukraine through the Black Sea to markets, many of them in Africa.

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UK inaction let Wagner group flourish and grow, say MPs

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Foreign affairs select committee condemns government’s ‘dismal lack of understanding’ about group’s hold in Africa

A decade-long failure by the British government has allowed the Wagner network to grow, spread its tentacles deep into Africa and exploit vulnerable countries, according to a highly critical report from the UK’s foreign affairs select committee.

It called on the government to proscribe the Wagner group in the UK and to make a far more concerted effort to stop it using the City of London as a financial centre.

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‘It is like a virus that spreads’: business as usual for Wagner group’s extensive Africa network

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Despite Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rebellion against the Kremlin, his military contracts are proving too profitable to lose

Four days after Wagner group mercenaries marched on Moscow, a Russian envoy flew into Benghazi to meet a worried warlord. The message from the Kremlin to Khalifa Haftar, the self-styled general who runs much of eastern Libya, was reassuring: the more than 2,000 Wagner fighters, technicians, political operatives and administrators in the country would be staying.

“There will be no problem here. There may be some changes at the top but the mechanism will stay the same: the people on the ground, the money men in Dubai, the contacts, and the resources committed to Libya,” the envoy told Haftar in his fortified palatial residence. “Don’t worry, we aren’t going anywhere.”

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