Army base, boat attacks in Mali leave 64 dead

BAMAKO, Mali — Attacks on an army base and a passenger boat on the Niger River in northern Mali on Thursday by al-Qaida linked insurgents killed 64 people, authorities said.

The two separate attacks targeted the Tombouctou boat on Niger River and an army position at Bamba in the northern Gao region with "a provisional toll of 49 civilians and 15 soldiers killed", according to a government statement read on state television.

It did not specify how many died in each assault and noted that the death toll was provisional, but the assaults were "claimed" by the Group to Support Islam and Muslims, or GSIM, an umbrella coalition of armed groups aligned with al-Qaida.

The government killed about 50 assailants while responding to the attacks, the statement said.

A few hours after the attacks, Mali's interim president, Assimi Goita, declared a three-day national mourning starting on Thursday to honor the civilians and soldiers killed in the attacks.

Earlier, the Malian army said on social media that the boat was attacked around 1100 GMT by "armed terrorist groups".

The vessel, plying an established route between cities along the river, was targeted by "at least three rockets" that aimed at its engines, the operator Comanav said separately.

The vessel was immobilized on the river and the army evacuated passengers, a Comanav official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Images on social media showed a cloud of black smoke rising above the river. The incident took place in a remote area and the images could not be verified independently.

The Niger River is a vital transport link in a region where road infrastructure is poor and railways absent.

Assailants on Thursday also attacked a military camp in the administrative subdivision of Gao.

On Friday, a suicide attack targeted another military base in Gao, the armed forces said in a statement, without providing more details.

Mali is one of several West African countries battling a violent insurgency with links to al-Qaida and Islamic State terror groups that took root in its arid north in 2012.

Growing instability

The growing insecurity in Mali has increased instability in the region. Al-Qaida affiliated and IS-linked groups have almost doubled the territory they control in Mali in less than a year, the United Nations said in a report last month.

The latest attacks came after the GSIM announced last month that it was blockading Timbuktu, the historic crossroads city of northern Mali.

Over 30,000 residents have fled the city and a nearby region, according to an August report by the UN's humanitarian agency.

The impoverished state has been struggling with insecurity since 2012, when a revolt led by ethnic Tuaregs erupted in the troubled north.

Since then, the country has been plagued by insurgencies, extremist incursions and intercommunity violence that have left thousands of people dead and hundreds of thousands displaced across the Sahel region south of the Sahara.

The insurgency was fanned by extremists, who took their own campaign into central Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso three years later, sending shock waves across the Sahel.

In northern Mali, the regional rebellion was formally ended by a peace agreement signed between the rebels and the Malian government in 2015.

However, the fragile deal came under strain in recent years. Mali has had two takeovers since 2020 in which the military vowed to stop the extremist violence.

Tensions in the region have revived in recent weeks after the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali handed over two bases near Timbuktu to the armed forces.

The UN is preparing to withdraw its 17,000-strong peacekeeping mission MINUSMA from Mali at the government's request. The pullout is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year.

The UN deployed peacekeepers in 2013 and MINUSMA has become the most dangerous UN mission in the world, with more than 300 personnel killed.

Agencies - Xinhua