Sixty-four people, including 49 civilians and 15 soldiers, were killed in Mali on Thursday, September 7, in two separate “terrorist” attacks, according to the government. The two strikes targeted a passenger river boat, called Timbuktu, on the Niger River and “the army position” in Bamba, Gao region (North), with “a provisional toll of 49 civilians and 15 soldiers killed,” explains a press release, which does not specify how many people died respectively in each of the attacks. The government announced a three-day national mourning starting Friday, in a separate statement.

According to SITE – an American NGO specializing in monitoring radical groups – the attack on the Bamba military base was claimed on Thursday by the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM), a jihadist alliance affiliated with Al-Qaeda, on the Al-Zallaqa propaganda platform.

The two attacks were “claimed” by the GSIM, the government said in its press release according to which the assault on the boat also caused “injuries as well as material damage”. The army’s response made it possible to “neutralize around fifty terrorists”, according to the same source.

The boat targeted by “at least three rockets”

The boat, from the Malian public navigation company (Comanav), was attacked in the Gourma-Rharous sector, between Timbuktu and Gao, the Malian army had clarified earlier on social networks. The boat was targeted by “at least three rockets fired against the engine,” Comanav, which with a few ships provides an important connection over several hundred kilometers from Koulikoro, near Koulikoro, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). from Bamako, to Gao, passing through the large towns on the river. Several passengers threw themselves into the water as soon as the first shots were fired against the ship, a Comanav official told AFP.

The Timbuktu can carry around 300 passengers, company agents said, without commenting on the number of people actually on board. Soldiers were on the boat as an escort amid the security threat in the region, a military official said.

A boat had already been attacked with a rocket on September 1 in the Mopti region, further south, leaving one dead, a 12-year-old child, and two injured. The river connection was used by different users, traders or families, and seemed safer to many than the road, a Comanav agent told AFP.

Blockade on Timbuktu

This attack came a few weeks after the GSIM announced, at the beginning of August, imposing a blockade on Timbuktu which coincides with the ongoing security reconfiguration around “the city of 333 saints”, listed as a World Heritage Site.

The United Nations (UN) Minusma mission, pushed from Mali by the ruling junta, has just left two camps near Timbuktu, Ber and Goundam, transferred to the Malian authorities. This takeover by the Malian state gave rise to battles with jihadists, but also clashes with ex-Tuareg rebels.

Timbuktu, with its tens of thousands of inhabitants on the edge of the Sahara, is one of the major cities in the north that fell into the hands of Tuareg rebels, then Salafists after the outbreak of the 2012 insurrection. French forces and Malians took over the city in 2013.

Tuareg-dominated groups signed a peace agreement with the Malian state in 2015 while jihadists continued hostilities. Violence has spread to the center and neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger, leaving thousands dead. The military has taken power by force in turn in the three countries since 2020, citing the security crisis.

Recent tensions in northern Mali raise fears for the survival of the 2015 agreement. The Malian military pushed the French anti-jihadist force out in 2022 and the UN mission in 2023, and politically towards Russia. They have made the restoration of sovereignty one of their mantras. But large areas continue to escape their control and various experts believe that the security situation has further deteriorated under their leadership.