The security situation has greatly deteriorated in the regions of Ménaka and Gao following an offensive of the Islamic State organization in the Grand Sahara.
Le Monde With AFP
fights between armed groups have made dozens of deaths in northeast Mali, in the regions of Ménaka and Gao, prey to jihadist violence in recent days, according to military officials and press releases jihadist propaganda.
The security situation has greatly deteriorated for eight months in the regions of Ménaka and Gao following an offensive of the group affiliated to the Islamic State organization in the Grand Sahara (EIGS), beyond what was then his area of action and influence.
“The jihadists clashed for several days in several cities in the Ménaka region,” said a local elected official on condition of anonymity for security reasons, information confirmed to AFP by another local elected official of the region being in Bamako and a Western security source in Niamey.
None evokes a balance sheet, nor gives the magnitude of these fights. This is extremely difficult in the absence of lifts of reliable information from largely inaccessible territories.
clashes for months
On the other hand, the jihadist groups affiliated with Al-Qaida and the EIGS gave very heavy assessments in press releases from their propaganda bodies mentioned by the American Center for Surveillance of the Djihadist Site sites.
EIGS said on Monday that it had killed forty fighters from the support group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM, Jnim in Arabic) in the Ménaka region, the latter responding Tuesday that he killed Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Seventy members of the EIGS, then admitting having lost around thirty men.
This immense remote region has been theater for months of clashes between these rival jihadist groups and fighting between jihadists and essentially Tuareg armed groups who signed peace agreements with the government in 2015. The region is also delivered to banditry and traffic.
The State has a very low presence there and the populations have mostly found refuge in the city of Ménaka. Two civilians, a child of which were also killed in the attack by armed men of a public transport bus between the localities of Ansongo and Ménaka, said the police on Tuesday.
Fighting taking EIGS and a unit of the Tuareg Imghad and Allies (Gatia) self -defense group also took place in the Gao region in the commune of Anchwadj, according to a press release from the platform of the platform Movements of June 14, 2014 of Algiers, of which Gatia is a part. He claims that this offensive left fifteen deaths on the side of the EIGS, nine on the side of the platform, as well as four civilians executed by the EIGS.