Some 40 Civilians Killed by Daesh-Linked Group in Mali
There were “at least 40 civilian deaths in three different sites” during a week of bloodshed in the Tessit area near the borders of Burkina Faso and Niger, a civilian official in the area told AFP.
The official said the death toll was provisional because information was patchy and coming in slowly from the remote and dangerous area.
“These civilians had been accused by one [extremist] group of complicity with the other group,” the official said.
Two Tessit residents, based in the regional capital Gao and the national capital Bamako, confirmed the scale of the violence after speaking with witnesses who had fled the carnage.
A spokesman for a group of armed northern militias reported a similar death toll.
The latest bloodshed comes in a week when France and its European partners announced they would start withdrawing their forces after more than nine years.
Tessit is in the “three borders” area, a hotspot of extremist violence.
The Daesh in the Greater Sahara (EIGS) and the Sahel’s largest extremist alliance, the al-Qaida-aligned GSIM group, are particularly active in the area.
As well as attacking local and foreign troops, they have been fighting each other for territory since 2020.
Three local sources, including the northern militia spokesman, said GSIM fighters went to several villages near Tessit, including Keygourouten, Bakal and Tadjalalt, between February 8-10.
Accusing the local shopkeepers of supplying EIGS, the GSIM fighters ransacked a health center, a pharmacy, a water tower and a shop, as well as stealing an ambulance.
The GSIM fighters also ordered the residents to leave. Between 150 and 200 households fled to Niger and surrounding towns.
Then on Monday and Tuesday, EIGS fighters arrived in the same villages.
“They accused the men of being accomplices of GSIM. They killed the old men and the young men,” the official in the Tessit area said.
Thirty were executed in Tadjalalt, the official said.
It is a common scenario, the official added, saying that “when an [extremist] group passes through a village, the one that comes later accuses the residents of being accomplices”.
Mali’s ruling junta, which seized power in a coup in 2020 after rising public outrage about elected leaders’ inability to stem the extremist bloodshed, has yet to speak about the Tessit violence.
Source: The Guardian
