In Mali, it has been just a year, at the beginning of March 2023, since the Sahelian branch of the Islamic State group launched its offensive in northeastern Mali, mainly in the Ménaka region. A succession of massacres which continue until today, causing hundreds of deaths and tens of thousands of displaced persons and refugees.
March 8, 2022, Tamalat: 145 dead. March 10, 2022, Anderamboukane : 213 dead. Inwelane, Anchawadje, Talataye… According to the cumulative assessments of local communities, more than 900 Malians, mainly Tuaregs, have been massacred over the past year in the attacks by the Islamic State groupwhich tries to impose itself in this part of the territory which largely escapes the control of the State and so far dominated, according to the zones, by the local armed groups signatories of the peace agreement of 2015, or by the jihadists rivals of the Jnim, the Support Group for Islam and Muslims, linked to al-Qaeda.
This woman is from Talataye, a locality today emptied of its population. She lives in Gao and describes the hell lived by the inhabitants. As a precaution and for his safety, we do not give his name and we modify his voice:
” They killed all the men they saw, they abducted all the animals they saw, they destroyed all the property they did not take, they killed the men in front of their wives, they burned the children, they raped the women, they made the women widowed, they forced them to move… Today, the territory is completely emptied of people and their property. »
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) currently counts nearly 90,000 internally displaced people in Ménaka, Gao and Kidal, not counting all those who have found refuge in Algeria, Niger or Libya. In Gao, displaced families are crowding into the homes and yards of their relatives, or in tents set up on the edge of the tarmac and around town, often without access to water or latrines.
” The populations are not taken into account by the government. The government did not even provide a place for the displaced families to be safe and for the NGOs to also have the security conditions to take care of them. Women and children need support for health, education, drinking water and food, which is the priority », Continues our interlocutor from Talataye.
On February 26, 2023, the Tuareg Idaksahak community still mourned nine civilians killed and a hundred animals taken away by the Islamic State group in Intiklatene, Ménaka region.