Mali

TIMBUKTU, Mali (AP) — Harandane Toure started taking malaria pills when he first spiked a fever but as the days passed his illness only worsened.

Doctors ultimately told him he was among the hundreds now infected with the coronavirus in this town long fabled for being inaccessible from the rest of the world.

There are no commercial flights to Timbuktu, whose remote location in the Sahara Desert has long made the town’s name synonymous with the ends of the Earth.

BAMAKO (Reuters) - Two peacekeepers with United Nations (UN) forces in Mali were killed on Saturday in an attack on their convoy in the north of the west African nation, the U.N. mission in Mali said on Sunday.

The logistics convoy was on a halt on the Tessalit - Gao road when unidentified armed individuals attacked it, and killed two peacekeepers, Mahamat Saleh Annadif, U.N. mission chief in Mali, said in a statement.

BAMAKO, June 7 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Mali pledged to investigate claims that the army killed dozens of civilians in its conflict-riven centre, as complaints about the military’s conduct in the West African nation escalate.

Some 30 people were killed and a village burnt in the region, officials said, but it was unclear who was behind the latest violence.

Friday’s attack targeted a Fulani village named Binedama in the volatile Mopti region, said Aly Barry, an official from Tabital Pulaaku, a Fulani association.

BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — French forces have killed Abdelmalek Droukdel, the leader of al-Qaida’s North Africa affiliate, the France’s defense minister announced late Friday, in what would be a major victory for France after years of battling jihadists in the Sahel.

LILONGWE, May 19 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Malawi Vice-President Saulos Chilima wants his supporters to literally embrace backers of other parties that he’s formed an alliance with.

He has come under fire for his remarks as there are warnings that this could encourage the spread of coronavirus.

Chilima is Lazarus Chakwera’s running mate in a presidential election re-run that is expected in July. In the May 2019 cancelled election they ran against each other.

BAMAKO, April 19 (Xinhua) -- The second round of legislative elections kicked off this Sunday at 8 a.m. GMT for Malian voters to choose the remaining 125 of the 147 deputies for Mali's National Assembly.

During the first round organized on March 29, only 22 deputies were elected, including 5 women, with a high rate of abstention due both to security problems in the north and center of the country and the spread of COVID-19.

BAMAKO, Jan 24 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Six soldiers were killed and several were wounded in an overnight attack in central Mali, the army said Thursday, in fresh violence in the war-torn West African state.

The troops came under fire late Wednesday from “unidentified armed men” in Dioungani, an area in central Mali’s volatile Mopti region near the border with Burkina Faso, the army said on Twitter.

Local authorities and inhabitants have blamed the attack on jihadists.

27 November 2019; AFP: The black boxes from two French military helicopters that collided in Mali killing 13 soldiers have been found, a French military spokesman said Wednesday.

The crash occurred late Monday during an operation against jihadists in the Liptako region, near the borders with Burkina Faso and Niger. It was the heaviest single loss for the French military in nearly four decades.

3 November 2019; AFP: The Islamic State on Saturday claimed responsibility for a devastating raid that killed 49 Malian troops as well as a blast that led to the death of a French soldier who became the latest casualty in the conflict-torn region.

The strikes underscored the fragility of an area straddling several West African countries battling increasing jihadist violence that has claimed hundreds of lives.

BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — Jihadists attacked the Malian military near the border with Niger, leaving at least 53 soldiers and one civilian dead, in the second major assault against the country’s armed forces in a month, the government said Saturday.

The latest violence to target Mali’s armed forces took place Friday in Indelimane, located in Mali’s volatile Menaka region.