The situation on the ground is difficult to determine, as the information is struggling to go back from this remote and dangerous area. The human record of this attack would be from thirty to forty-five dead.
Le Monde with AFP
Dozens of civilians were killed this week in Télataye this week, a locality in northern Mali attacked by jihadists affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) organization, local officials announced. This is the first time that Télataye, about 150 kilometers from Gao, has undergone an attack of such a scale of the Islamic State group in the Grand Sahara (EIGS). Télataye, consisting essentially in an agglomeration of hamlets in a large desert expanse, is located at the convergence of influence areas of different armed groups, and the clashes are recurrent.
The jihadists of EIGS arrived on Tuesday fought a fierce battle to rival jihadists of the support group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM, affiliated with Al-Qaida), and other armed groups, including the Movement for the salvation of Azawad (MSA), predominantly Touareg, brought to the agency France-Presse different interlocutors.
The situation on the ground is obscure, as the information is struggling to go back from this remote area, largely cut off from communication networks and dangerous. The human record also varies according to the sources which however speak all dozens of civilian deaths, without clearly appearing what part of these civilians would have been taken between two fires, as is frequent, or could have been executed.
Populations taken between two fires
EIGS men succeeded at the price of fierce fights of more than three hours to take the locality on Tuesday evening, had reported local interlocutors at the start of the week.
A local elected official and an MSA official expressed under the cover of anonymity reported on Friday, one of forty-five civilians killed, the other of more than thirty. A humanitarian person spoke of several dozen civilians killed. The local elected representative and the MSA manager both reported, at least partial, with EIGS fighters. “Currently we control the city, and the GSIM another part,” said MSA manager.
“What really worries us is the humanitarian situation, the populations are abandoned to themselves,” said the local elected official. “The situation on site is very difficult according to witnesses,” said a humanitarian worker working in the region. An association of women, nationals of the locality but installed in Gao, launched a “pressing call” to “come to the aid of the bruised populations”.
Télataye had some 13,000 inhabitants in 2009, the date of the last census in Mali. The GSIM passes to be very influential in this region. Other armed groups that signed peace agreements with the Malian State in 2015 after having fought it, mainly MSA fighters, are also established.
All this immense region of Gao and Ménaka, further east, has been prey for months of fighting putting the jihadists with each other or the jihadists with other essentially Tuareg armed groups. The State has a very low presence there and the populations are taken between two fires, victims of massacres and reprisals because suspected of pacting with the enemy, or deprived of livelihoods.
EIGS, created with a split with other jihadist groups in 2015, has prospered in recent years in an area of action limited to border bands between Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. The group, which has largely recruited in nomadic communities historically marginalized by the central states, was guilty of numerous massacres of civilians, notably in Seytenga in Burkina Faso where 86 civilians were killed in June.