At least six people, including children, were killed Tuesday, November 7, by strikes on the town of Kidal, a major sovereignty issue between the Malian state and the predominantly Tuareg rebellion, said witnesses and residents who blamed these strikes on the Malian army.
“There were several strikes this morning. There are six deaths, including three children,” said a health worker on condition of anonymity. Other testimonies report a heavier human toll. Almou Ag Mohamed, a spokesperson for the Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA), an alliance of separatist groups dominated by the Tuareg, told AFP of twelve deaths, including four children, in three separate strikes. .
The testimonies speak of air strikes, without further details, or the use of drones – machines available to the Malian army. No reaction was initially obtained from the Malian authorities. At least one of the strikes hit the camp occupied until recently by the UN mission, Minusma.
Kidal is under the control of the rebellion. Its groups, which concluded a peace agreement with the government in 2015, have just resumed hostilities. The insubordination of the Kidal region, where the army suffered humiliating defeats between 2012 and 2014, is an old source of irritation in Bamako.
Military climbing
The north of Mali, a country plagued since 2012 by the spread of jihadism and a deep multidimensional crisis, has been the scene since August of a military escalation between all the armed actors present (army, rebels, jihadists). The withdrawal of Minusma sparked a race for control of the territory; and the evacuation of his Kidal camp promised to be the most flammable. The separatists are opposed to Minusma handing over the camps to the Malian authorities, which, according to them, goes against agreements made in 2014 and 2015, when, after rising up in 2012, they agreed to cease fire and make peace.
Anticipating the departure of Minusma, a large army convoy left Gao on October 2 towards Kidal. But the UN mission, constrained by the deterioration in security, accelerated its withdrawal, to the great irritation of the junta in power in Bamako, and left its Kidal camp last week. The separatist rebellion immediately took control, outstripping the Malian army. The colonels who took over the country by force in 2020 have made the restoration of territorial sovereignty their mantra.
Minusma, whose numbers numbered around 15,000 soldiers and police and more than 180 members were killed in hostile acts, is supposed to have left by December 31. Since July, it has withdrawn nearly 6,000 civilian and uniformed personnel from Mali.
