Tuareg rebels in northern Mali said they had seized a military camp and checkpoints in the town of Bourem, jeopardizing a 2015 peace deal. This follows weeks of fighting with the national army and Wagner mercenaries , according to Al Jazeera.
The Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA), a Tuareg rebel alliance, on September 12, caught Bourem, which is located between the historic cities of Gao and Timbuktu. This came after the military consolidated its hold on power through two coups in 2020 and 2021 and expelled French forces as well as the United Nations peacekeeping mission, MINUSMA.
The region, which was the birthplace of the armed uprising that has spread throughout the Sahel, is experiencing increased tension, in part due to the withdrawal of the UN peacekeepers who helped maintain the fragile peace.
Now, following the return of hostilities in the north, Mali’s ruling junta has canceled next week’s celebrations to honor the country’s independence anniversary, according to the council of ministers.
The anniversary will be “celebrated with sobriety and in a spirit of national revival,” the council stated. reportedly he said after junta leader Assimi Goita’s decision to call off the celebrations. Goita reportedly ordered the administration to use the reserved money to help families and survivors of the attacks.
This week, armed separatist factions with Tuareg predominance resumed Hostilities in Mali, which saw uprisings in the north throw the country into chaos in 2012. They launched an attack on army positions in the garrison town of Bourem on September 12, which the army is said to have repulsed.
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The resurgence of Tuareg separatist military activity coincided with a chain of attacks which were mostly attributed to the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (GSIM), an association of militants linked to Al-Qaeda. It also occurred at the same time as the ongoing demobilization of the United Nations peacekeeping mission MINUSMA, which the junta is expelling after ten years of deployment.
Many soldiers died in attacks that the GSIM claimed responsibility for, including those that occurred in the cities of Gao and Bamba on September 8 and 7 respectively. Numerous civilians were killed last week in an attack on a passenger boat on the Niger River that was blamed on terrorists.