The separatists blame “the Malian junta’s army and Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group” for the attacks in Tinzaouatene, near Algeria. The separatists’ spokesman Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane says that eleven children are among those killed.
A local politician told AFP that at least 15 civilians were killed in the attacks, while other sources, including a representative of an organization in the area, put the death toll at around 20.
Ramadane says Sunday’s attack was aimed at a pharmacy. Subsequently, a second attack is said to have been directed at a crowd nearby.
Confirms attack
Mali’s military confirms the attack.
– The military’s general staff confirms that air strikes were carried out in the Tinzaouatine area on the morning of 25 August. These precision strikes targeted terrorists, said a statement broadcast on state television.
The Wagner group entered Mali two years ago to help Mali’s military junta fight rebels who have been carrying out attacks in the Sahel region since 2012.
The Russian mercenaries were brought into the heat after the coup plotters in Mali had kicked out French and UN forces who had assisted in the fight against Islamist insurgents for a decade.
Wagner defeat
The Tinzaouates were the scene of a major battle at the end of July. Then the separatists, who are largely made up of ethnic Tuareg, claimed to have inflicted a serious defeat on the Malian army and the Wagner group.
– Malian forces and the Russian mercenaries do not have a strong presence on the ground in the Kidal region, so the use of artillery from the air, among them drones, is the only way they can assert themselves against the armed groups in the area, says researcher Rida Lyammouri at the Moroccan think tank Policy Center for the New South to AP.
– Therefore, it is expected that airstrikes, also against civilians, will increase in number in retaliation for the recent, major defeat of the Wagner mercenaries in the north of Mali, she says further.
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2024-08-26 11:20:14
