BAMAKO, Mali: The ruling junta in Mali has called off festivities to mark the anniversary of independence due next week, and is considering mobilising reservists in the face of rising tensions in the north.
Following the decision, taken by junta leader Assimi Goita, the anniversary will be “celebrated in sobriety and in the spirit of national revival”, the council of ministers said in a statement late Wednesday.
Mali, a former French colony, became an independent republic on September 22, 1960. The junta, which came to power after back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021, had initially said it would celebrate the anniversary with great fanfare.
But Goita ordered the government to allocate the funds set aside to help the victims of a series of recent attacks and their families, the council said.
Mali, which was in 2012 plunged into turmoil by separatist and Salafist insurrections in the north, has this week seen a resumption of hostilities by predominantly Tuareg armed groups.
The escalation risks testing an already stretched army as well as the junta’s claims that it has successfully turned around a dire security situation.
On Tuesday, the separatist groups launched an offensive against army positions in the garrison town of Bourem, which the military said it had repelled.
The two sides provided contradictory reports of events, but both reported dozens of deaths.
The renewed military activity by the Tuareg has coincided with a succession of attacks attributed mainly to the militant alliance Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM).
It also coincides with the ongoing withdrawal of the UN stabilisation mission MINUSMA, which is being pushed out by the junta after 10 years of deployment.
Several recent attacks claimed by GSIM have killed a number of soldiers, including in the town of Bamba on September 7 and the city of Gao on September 8.
An attack on a passenger boat on the Niger River, blamed on militants, left dozens of civilians dead last week. —AFP/APP
