Mali jihadists begin Bamako blockade as slain minister’s tribute held

Jihadists in troubled Mali began a road blockade on the capital Bamako on Thursday, following up on weekend attacks alongside mainly Tuareg separatists against the ruling junta’s positions, AFP learned from security and transport sources. On Tuesday, the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM, allied with Al-Qaeda) had announced its intention to […]

Jihadists in troubled Mali began a road blockade on the capital Bamako on Thursday, following up on weekend attacks alongside mainly Tuareg separatists against the ruling junta’s positions, AFP learned from security and transport sources.

On Tuesday, the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM, allied with Al-Qaeda) had announced its intention to impose a blockade on access routes to Bamako, threatening severe reprisals against anyone still travelling on roads leading to the capital or the nearby town of Kati, a junta stronghold.

“The only concession is being made for those already in Bamako to allow them to leave,” a JNIM spokesperson stated.

The past two days had seen traffic towards Bamako thin out, according to road users, though air traffic remained unaffected.

On Thursday, hundreds of passenger and goods vehicles were stranded at several entry points into the city, transport operators said, notably on routes leading out to Conakry, Abidjan and Dakar, port cities in neighbouring states vital to landlocked Mali’s economy.

“We’ve been stuck here since yesterday (Wednesday). There are at least a hundred vehicles parked here as far as the eye can see,” a lorry driver said, speaking from the border town of Kouremale.

“We’re waiting for things to settle down, but anxiety is mounting,” he told AFP.

On the road to Sikasso, another vital route linking Mali to Ivorian seaports, including Abidjan, several sources reported violent incidents, with one security source telling reporters that a number of drivers had been killed – though it was not possible to verify the claim.

Late last year, the JNIM attempted to cripple the Malian economy by imposing blockades on the supply of petrol and diesel being trucked in from the Ivory Coast and Senegal in particular.

 

Slain minister’s tribute held

Meanwhile, Mali held a tribute under tight security for assassinated defence minister Sadio Camara on Thursday, following large-scale attacks at the weekend by jihadists and their Tuareg separatist allies that have destabilised the country’s junta.

Thousands of people, including junta leader Assimi Goita, attended the ceremony at the military engineering battalion grounds in the centre of the capital, Bamako.

Numerous armed soldiers were present, journalists observed, with checkpoints and barricades blocking roads and security forces strictly controlling access.

Camara was one of the junta’s top officials and was considered the architect of Mali’s rapprochement with Russia in recent years.

The 47-year-old minister died as a result of a car bomb on Saturday at his residence in Kati, a garrison town near Bamako that is home to several senior junta officials.

The government declared two days of national mourning following his death.

Among the throngs who attended Thursday’s ceremony were Camara’s friends and family, as well as officials from Mali and abroad, including the defence ministers of neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso.

Mali’s ruling junta and its military counterparts in Niger and Burkina have severed ties with former colonial ruler France, moving closer politically and militarily to Moscow and banding together in the Alliance of Sahel States (AES).

Dressed in combat fatigues, Goita paid tribute to Camara by bowing before his coffin, which was draped in Mali’s green, yellow and red flag with his military cap on top.

Prime Minister Abdoulaye Maiga declared that Camara had “helped define Mali’s defence priorities. He represented unwavering loyalty to the public interest”.

“You fell a martyr, you died a hero”, he added.

Family spokesman Bakary Camara, meanwhile, paid tribute to “a devoted father, husband and son”.

A military parade followed the tributes, with a funeral to take place later in the day.