According to the interim administration of Mali, Islamist terrorists assaulted a military post and a passenger boat in northern Mali on Thursday, killing at least 64 persons, including 49 civilians, and wounded several others. Around 50 alleged Islamist insurgents were also killed, according to the statement.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, an attack on a Malian Armed Forces (FAMas) base in Bamba, Gao Region, killed 15 soldiers, albeit this figure is tentative.
According to reports, the insurgents also attacked a passenger boat bringing civilians from Gao to Mopti across the Niger River.
According to the government, both attacks were carried out by “terrorists from the Support Group for Islam and Muslims,” an Al-Qaeda-affiliated group.
In response to the latest incident, authorities in Bamako, the former French colony’s capital, have proclaimed three days of national mourning beginning Friday.
The local militia, the Support Group for Islam and Muslims, is alleged to have organized a blockade around the Malian city of Timbuktu, in the region where the civilian boat was targeted, killing approximately 50 civilians.
Human Rights Watch stated in July that armed groups had carried out widespread killings, rapes, and lootings in villages in northeast Mali this year, forcing thousands of civilians to flee the Menaka and Gao regions.
Mali has been fighting an Islamist insurgency since 2012, with significant assistance from the French army, which intervened in 2013 in response to an uptick in violence in the country’s north.
However, earlier this year, Bamako’s army-led government requested that France withdraw its troops “without delay,” stating that French military presence in the Sahel nation was “unsatisfactory.”
The military authorities have also given the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) until December 31 to remove its 15,000 personnel. According to Malian officials, the UN presence is exacerbating tensions.
