Mohamed Ag Ahmedou
By the editorial staff of Méhari Post, a media branch of the Méhari Consulting consultancy firm.
The slogans of unity chanted by the Malian authorities resonate far from the scorched earth of Macina or the Azawad desert. For several months, the junta’s war against groups labeled “terrorists” has taken on the appearance of ethnic reprisals, leaving behind civilians devastated, families shattered, and villages depopulated.
Drones against nomads
While Bamako continues to hammer home the unity and indivisibility of Mali, drone strikes, atrocities against civilians, and the activism of Russian proxies in the center and north of the country paint a much more fragmented picture.
According to reports from the Center for Strategic Analysis founded by Mohamed AG Ahmedou, a Tuareg researcher based in Nouakchott, several drone strikes carried out by the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) have targeted Fulani and Tuareg encampments in the Mopti, Timbuktu, and Gao regions. Officially, these are targets harboring jihadist elements. In reality, many of these attacks target unarmed civilians, without judicial process, or verification.
On Tuesday, July 8, near the village of Zouéra (Timbuktu region), a Malian drone reportedly targeted the family of Aljoumaate, a hygienist and caretaker at the community health center. Three of his daughters, all minors, were killed instantly. Their mother, seriously injured, had to have both legs amputated at the regional hospital. “I no longer have a family,” murmurs a distraught Mr. Aljoumaate, as the community fears he will join the ranks of the rebellion, like others before him, driven into the arms of the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) or JNIM, for lack of an alternative.
An image that illustrates a grieving nomadic family as was the case of the family of Mr. Aljoumaate who lost his family on July 8, 2025 in Zouera.
The image illustrates the flight of nomadic families in the desert and who seek refuge in another country.
In Essakane, a rural commune in the Goundam district, fear has already emptied the villages. A refugee now settled in Mauritania, contacted by telephone, recounts:
” The Malian military junta is driving us from our homes with terror. They will never have my commune of Essakane without me.”
Like him, hundreds of families have fled to the border, particularly to Bassikounou and Fassala, to escape bombings and night raids. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has noted a surge in new arrivals since late 2024 and early 2025, from areas of tension where the joint presence of FAMa and Russian mercenaries is reported.
The Russian shadow
Russian proxies, widely believed to be affiliated with the Wagner group, are now omnipresent in so-called “sensitive” regions. Last April, the daily newspaper Libération revealed the massacre of 43 Fulani civilians in Gourma, near the Burkinabe border. The bodies, found with their hands bound and riddled with bullets, bore the marks of summary executions. Other accounts report “community cleansing” carried out in the silence of the dunes.
Several articles published on the Méhari Consulting platform also confirmed that targeted operations in the regions of Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal systematically targeted camps and places where weekly fairs are held, such as in Adjjer last February and in Zouera on July 8, localities with a predominantly Tuareg and Arab population suspected of sympathy for the Azawad Liberation Front, FLA. Again, without a mandate, without distinction between civilians and combatants.
A counterproductive strategy
This logic of collective punishment, warn several NGOs, including Crisis Group, fuels resentment and reinforces the fragmentation of the country. In a report published in December 2024, the organization highlighted “the disproportionate use of force against populations identified, rightly or wrongly, with jihadist groups,” with the risk of fueling an endless cycle of reprisals and armed engagement.
Since the official breakdown of the Peace Agreement with the attack by Russian mercenaries from Wagner and their Fama auxiliaries on a security post of the Permanent Strategic Framework renamed the Azawad Liberation Front in the town of Foyta in early August 2023 and the first clashes between the CSP-PSD from August 11 to 14, 2023 between the towns of Ber and Timbuktu until today. It seems that the territories of Azawad are increasingly escaping Bamako’s control. Strongholds are now held by the FLA or by factions close to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (EIGS), the latter of which holds 3/4 of the Menaka region and 2/4 of the Gao region with a fixed HQ installed in the city of Anderboukane since May 2022 where this nebulous terrorist organization known as EIGS forced the Malian army and its Tuareg militias of GATIA and MSA-D to capitulate. In this context, the assertion of the indivisibility of the Malian state seems like a chimera.
“This word ‘indivisibility’ no longer corresponds to anything on the ground,” Mohamed AG Ahmedou states. “It’s a facade of rhetoric. In reality, the state is implementing a strategy of suppression that excludes certain communities from the nation. And they are the ones paying the highest price.”
Towards implosion?
As the junta continues to invest massively in weapons, to the detriment of political dialogue, identity and territorial divides are deepening. Peace seems more distant than ever. And the dream of a united Mali is being tested more than ever.
23-07-25