Mali: the elections threatened by the Katiba Macina offensive in the center?

Jihadist fighters in Mali (Illustration).

STRINGER / AFP

Text by: David Baché

2 min

The security situation is tragically deteriorating in the country.

For several weeks, Amadou Kouffa's Katiba Macina, member of the Support Group for Islam and Muslims, the Jnim of Iyad Ag Ghaly, has been on the offensive in several sectors of the center of the country: Gourma, Dogon country , Circles of Niono and Djenné… The civilian populations are paying the price and this alarming security situation is invoked by the authorities to justify a possible extension of the duration of the transition.

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In the circle of Niono, in the region of Ségou, the hold of the Katiba Macina continues to expand.

Farabougou, Dogofry, Siby, Mariko… the jihadists prevent the peasants from going to the fields and burn the crops, depriving the populations of their means of subsistence.

The traditional dozo hunters who oppose them suffer losses and in turn attack pastoral villages.

Herders can no longer go to the market to sell their cattle and deplore acts of violence and racketeering.

dozens of people dead.

This week new population movements were noted.

Local sources and humanitarian organizations mobilized in the area speak of thousands of displaced persons. 

The army accused of abuses

In the circle of Djenné, in the region of Mopti, the populations are also caught in a vice.

On the one hand, the Katiba Macina jihadists have taken control of many villages.

On the other hand, the Malian Special Forces based in Sofara, which are trying to counter them, have made numerous arrests since the beginning of the month: twenty-two according to the army, several dozen according to local sources who, above all, accuse the army of abuses.

Some sources mention dozens of executions, which the Malian staff formally denied on Wednesday, October 13 in a press release. 

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What consequences for civilian populations? How do they live in areas threatened or even controlled by Katiba Macina? Are the elections supposed to mark the end of the transition period initiated by the military coup that overthrew President IBK in August 2020 threatened? Answers and explanations with Boubacar Ba, director of the Analysis Center on Governance and Security in the Sahel. With the case, to begin with, of the circle of Djenné.

[There is] the problem of trust between the communities and the armed forces on the ground and the fact that the jihadists want to apply Sharia law all around [...] Groups come to mosques, they have demands on prayers, to the application of Islam [...] The dialogue continues but it is the fights which dictate the law on the ground [...] I do not think that it is instrumentalized.

The elections are important but the security situation dictates that we can engage in negotiations and contain the wide spectrum of multiple armed clashes in the country.

Boubacar Ba

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• Mali

• Terrorism