By Mohamed AG Ahmedou, journalist and specialist in political and security dynamics.
For weeks, the Malian military high command maintained that it had “neutralized terrorists” in Ntjinna. It was only under the pressure of events, reignited by the attacks targeting fuel tankers on December 6 between Bougouni and Ouelessebougou, that the junta acknowledged a blunder committed on October 22 against farmers.
This belated admission sheds light on a now well-established pattern: strike civilians, distort the truth, and then plunge the South back into heightened insecurity, which feeds the ranks of JNIM.
A belated acknowledgment, forced by events:
It took several weeks for the Malian military junta to admit what local populations had been asserting since the very next day: on October 22, in Ntjinna, a town located in the Kolondieba department of the Bougouni region, it was not jihadist fighters who were targeted, but farmers.
At the time, the Directorate of Information and Public Relations of the Armed Forces (DIRPA) spoke of a successful operation against “neutralized terrorists.” The official version crumbled in the face of consistent testimonies, accounts from survivors, and on-the-ground observations.
This acknowledgment is not the result of newfound transparency. It comes at a time when the December 6 attacks on fuel tankers between Bougouni and Ouelessebougou have brought to light the true nature of the actions of a tyrannical regime that knows only how to inflict suffering on its people.
Because the December 6 attack also reveals that the terrorists’ retreat along National Route 7 was never cleared, which corroborates the short-lived truce agreement that existed between the Malian military junta and JNIM, as cited by Bina Diarra, JNIM’s spokesperson in southern Mali.
A strike on farmers, a state lie:
On October 22, in the village of Ntjinina, in the commune of Kolondièba, Kolondièba district, Bougouni region, the Malian army attacked a group of farmers in their fields. They had come to plow their in-laws’ field. The toll was heavy: four dead and eleven wounded, all civilians, with no connection to any armed group.
Initially, the Directorate of Information and Public Relations of the Armed Forces (DIRPA) claimed responsibility for the operation as the destruction of a “jihadist nest.” A now routine formula, used as a communication reflex to cover up controversial airstrikes.
But, in a rare move, unofficial voices within the military establishment have finally acknowledged, albeit furtively, that the victims were indeed innocent.
An acknowledgment without justice, without an independent investigation, without prosecutions. An acknowledgment without a face.
Selective Acknowledgment of Atrocities:
This admission, however timid, sent shockwaves all the way to the north of the country. A source from the Timbuktu region expressed outrage:
“The military junta acknowledges atrocities when they concern populations in the South. But those committed in the Center and the North are never recognized. There, the dead don’t exist.”
This tacit hierarchy of victims reveals a deep divide in how the military state views its citizens based on their location and, often, their community affiliation.
Leave your forests or die:
In Ntjinina, the violence didn’t stop at the beating. In an audio message circulated on WhatsApp, a local leader informed the farming and forestry community that the Malian authorities were demanding the immediate evacuation of the Kolondièba forest. Farmers, loggers, charcoal makers, and forest dwellers: all ordered to leave to prevent a repeat of the October 22nd massacre.
The instructions are clear: a ban on using two- or four-wheeled vehicles, an order for internal exile, and the criminalization of mere human presence in rural areas vital to local economic survival.
The logic is brutal: if you stay, you become a legitimate target.
From Bounty to Ntjinina: the repetition of a crime:
Some observers still dare to call it an isolated incident. Others see it as a repeat of the Bounty tragedy, in the Douentza district, which the Ministry of Defense, under Sadio Camara, finally acknowledged at the time, after months of denial.
But the real turning point lies elsewhere.
The Age of Drones, the Age of Invisible Deaths:
Since 2023, the Malian military junta has acquired Baykar and AKINCI combat drones, supplied by Turkey. Since then, airstrikes have multiplied. And with them, civilian deaths.
The list is long, overwhelming, and documented by consistent local accounts:
November 7, 2023 – Kidal: an airstrike kills several civilians, including a surveyor and several business owners.
March 2024 – Amasrakad (Gao region): more than a dozen women and children killed.
October 20, 2024 – Inadjatafane, Gourma-Rharous district, in the Liptako-Gourma region: 16 dead, including two babies.
July 8, 2025 – Zouera, north of the Goundam district, west of Timbuktu: an airstrike targets a weekly market, killing four people, including three underage girls.
January-June 2025 – Adjjer and another locality, Lerneb: several localities are struck, resulting in dozens of deaths.
October 30, 2025 – Gossi, west of the pond: 19 people, mostly women and children, are killed during a wedding.
October 24 – Émimalane, Farach sector, Goundam district: eight people are killed, including three women and three girls.
November 6 – Aratane: two teenagers are killed, including the son of a Tuareg soldier stationed in Timbuktu.
November 13 – Tangata, Tin-Aicha commune, Gargando district: an entire family is wiped out, with seven people killed, including five children.
November 14 – Eghachar N’Tirikene, Gargando commune: seven dead, including five women and two infants under one year old.
December 1, 2025 – Inagozmi, Ber commune: three people were killed by a mission of the Malian armed forces and their Russian military auxiliaries. Several sources of sustenance belonging to the impoverished nomadic population were burned by the Russians, and some money was stolen by the same mission.
No independent investigation. No one held accountable.
Africa Corps: Terror on the Ground:
In addition to airstrikes, ground patrols by Africa Corps, formerly the Wagner Group, supported by the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa), have carried out extremely violent operations in the Timbuktu and Kidal regions.
On November 25 and 26, in the villages of Émimalane, Taroma Zouera, Amaranane, and Nijhaltate, thirteen civilians, including women and children, were massacred with a cruelty described as unbearable by survivors. These villages are now deserted, transformed into ghost towns.
One Testimony Among Many
A member of the Arab community confides:
“My cousin, Deydou ould Beirouk, from the Gouanine tribe, was murdered.” On November 6, 2025, en route to Farach near Essakane, he was intercepted by a patrol of the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) and Africa Corps. He was tied up and then executed. His body was found two days later. We live in fear and impunity.”
A murderous and irresponsible regime:
The audio message from Kolondièba reveals a harsh truth: not all lives are equal in the eyes of the junta. Victims in the North and Center can die without recognition. Those in the South, sometimes, receive a tactical acknowledgment.
According to an American news agency, more than 5,000 civilians have been killed by the Malian army and its Russian allies in the North and Center.
This regime now appears to be the most murderous and ethnocentric in Mali’s contemporary history, fueling the conditions for lasting chaos, where the Syrian and Afghan scenarios are no longer speculation but an ongoing trajectory.
When budgets increase, except for the protection of civilians:
While civilians die, the junta’s institutions thrive.
According to the 2026 Finance Law:
The budget of the Malian military junta’s legislative body, the National Transitional Council (CNT), increases from 11.451 billion to 13.62 billion CFA francs (+2 billion).
Prime Minister’s Office: increases from 12.803 billion to 14.413 billion CFA francs.
Presidency: increases from 15.672 billion to 17.407 billion CFA francs.
Defense: decreases by more than 22 billion CFA francs, from 554.091 billion to 531.206 billion CFA francs.
A telling paradox: the militarized state invests more in its institutional comfort than in the effective protection of its population.
A state against its own society:
Mali is no longer just facing a security crisis. He is now facing a moral crisis within the state, where the indiscriminate use of force, impunity, and the denial of victims fuel an endless cycle of violence.
In Ntjinina, as in Kidal, Gossi, or Gargando, civilians are not asking for military victory. They are asking for the right to live.
And it is precisely this right that the Malian state is currently unable to guarantee, and which it is even trampling upon.
Mohamed AG Ahmedou
18-12-25