Islamist militants have killed at least 49 civilians in northeastern Mali in an attack on a vessel on the Niger River separating the towns of Gao and Mopti. On the same day, they also attacked a military camp, in which they shot 15 soldiers. This is reported by the Reuters news agency.
According to Reuters, the local government declared three days of mourning and stressed in a televised statement that the death toll may not be final. “Many other people were also injured” at the scene.
Islamist insurgents attacked a ship carrying civilians across the flood plains that separate the cities of Gao and Mopti during the rainy season. The vessel was sailing from Gao when it was hit. The BBC news television added that it was an attack on the Niger River.
However, the attacks by the militants did not go unanswered and forced a retaliation, during which there was an attack on their military camp in the district of Bourem, an administrative subdivision of the Gao region in northeastern Mali, in which approximately 50 Islamists were killed.
Mali is one of several West African countries battling a violent insurgency linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group that took hold in the country’s arid north in 2012.
Militants have gained a foothold and spread across the Sahel and into coastal West African countries, despite costly international efforts to support local troops. Thousands of people have been killed and more than six million displaced throughout the Sahel region south of the Sahara.
Frustration with growing insecurity has fueled two military coups in Mali and two in Burkina Faso since 2020 – four of the eight coups that have hit West and Central Africa in the past three years.