DAKAR: At least 15 civilians including children were killed on Sunday by drone strikes in Mali’s north, where the army and its Russian allies are fighting separatists and jihadists, local sources said.

The separatists blamed “the army of the Malian junta and Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group” for the strikes at Tinzaouatene, near Algeria, giving a provisional death toll of 21 civilians, including 11 children.

Tinzaouatene was the site of a major late July battle in which the mainly Tuareg-led separatists claimed to have inflicted a serious defeat on the Malian army and Wagner.

Sunday’s strikes “initially targeted a pharmacy, then other strikes followed, targeting human gatherings near the first damage,” said separatist spokesman Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane. A local politician said at least 15 civilians were killed in the strikes.

Separatists blame the army and Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group for the attacks

Meanwhile a local NGO official said “at least 20 civilians including children” had been killed in the drone strikes on Sunday, and a retired local official said at least 20 people were left dead.

Heavy defeat

Since seizing power in a 2020 coup, the West African nation’s military leaders have made it a priority to retake all of the country from separatists and jihadist forces linked to Al Qaeda and the militant Islamic State group.

After an eight-year lull, hostilities between Bamako and separatists fighting for an independent homeland resumed in August 2023.

Under Colonel Assimi Goita, the junta broke off its traditional alliance with former colonial ruler France, turning towards Russia instead.

This led to troops from Russia’s Wagner mercenary group being deployed to the country, though the junta insisted they were only there as “instructors”.

But on July 25, the Malian army and its Russian allies became embroiled in an ambush on the outskirts of Tinzaouatene.

In three days of intense fighting, separatists claimed to have killed 84 Wagner fighters and 47 Malian soldiers.

The Malian army and Wagner acknowledged significant losses without giving a precise toll.

In the aftermath Russia’s top diplomat Sergei Lavrov reaffirmed Moscow’s “firm support” for Mali, and Mali’s army retaliated with drone strikes on Tinzaouatene in the following days.

Published in Dawn, August 26th, 2024