By Khamidoune Ag Toumast.
Presented to the international community at the United Nations, the Human Rights Council, and all international organizations committed to justice and the rights of peoples.
The question of Azawad is neither a simple political disagreement with the Malian state nor an administrative conflict that can be reduced to superficial negotiations. It is a historical, human, and existential cause, championed by a people with a profound identity, a long-documented territory, and a geographical memory recognized for centuries.
It is also a matter of serious crimes, systematic abuses, and acts constituting a veritable campaign of extermination against the women and children of the Azawad people.
1 – The Historical and Geographical Legitimacy of Azawad:
The name Azawad* is not a modern invention. It appears on the oldest historical maps, as well as in numerous Arab, African, and European sources, some dating back to the medieval period.
Geographers, travelers, chroniclers, and researchers throughout the centuries have identified Azawad as a distinct territory, possessing its own unique social, cultural, and political reality.
Old maps clearly show:
- Land of the #Tuareg
- Macina / #Massina
- #Azawad
- #Bambara
While the name Mali does not appear, because the current Malian state is a recent political construct of the 20th century, resulting from colonial divisions, without conforming to past geographical or human realities.
A careful examination of an map from 1873 confirms:
- The clear presence of the term “Bambara”, with boundaries stopping at “Ségou“.
- Just above is Massina.
- And at the top, the map clearly indicates “Azawad” and “Tuareg”, confirming a long-standing international recognition of the territory and its people.
These historical elements, supported by numerous maps and archives, demonstrate unequivocally that Azawad possesses an undeniable historical, geographical, and identity-based legitimacy, predating the formation of the modern Malian state by several centuries.
2 – Crimes, Atrocities, and Genocide Against the Women and Children of Azawad**
What the people of Azawad are enduring today goes far beyond the scope of a military conflict: it is a targeted extermination campaign, waged by Malian forces and affiliated militias against civilians—particularly women and children.
DOCUMENTED VIOLATIONS INCLUDE:
- Summary executions of unarmed civilians.
- Massacres attested to by reliable videos, testimonies, and documents.
- Targeted killings of women and systematic rape.
- Murders of children, burning of villages inhabited by families.
- Abductions and enforced disappearances.
- Mass forced displacements of indigenous populations.
- Humanitarian sieges, food deprivation, denial of access to healthcare.
- Deliberate destruction of villages, vital resources, and planned cultural erasure.
Multiple audio and video recordings, as well as local and international investigations, show that this violence is not accidental, but rather part of an organized policy, based on the desire to erase Tuareg and Azawad identity.
According to the criteria of international law, and in particular the 1948 Convention on the Prevention of Genocide, the following acts constitute the very definition of genocide:
- The elimination of a specific ethnic group.
- Systematic massacres.
- Sexual violence used as a weapon of destruction.
- Large-scale forced displacement.
- The deliberate destruction of a people’s culture.
All these elements are documented to apply to the situation of the populations of Azawad.
3. International Silence and Worsening Violations:
Despite the scale of the crimes and the growing body of evidence, the international community is demonstrating a *disturbing passivity*.
This silence has allowed:
- The continuation of the massacres.
- The intensification of atrocities.
- The worsening of the humanitarian situation.
- Total impunity for the perpetrators of the crimes.
Calls for protection, videos, testimonies, NGO reports, and historical documentation—all of this has been ignored, while women and children continue to pay the heaviest price.
4. Official demands of the Azawadi people:
Faced with this situation, civil, political and humanitarian organizations in Azawad are officially requesting:
- International recognition of Azawad as a historical territory with its own distinct identity.
- The opening of an *international investigation* into the crimes of genocide.
- The prosecution of Malian officials before international justice.
- The immediate protection of civilians, particularly women and children.
- Respect for the right to self-determination of the people of Azawad.
- A complete cessation of military operations targeting civilian populations.
- The deployment of an international mission to monitor and document violations on the ground.
CONCLUSION:
The cause of Azawad is first and foremost a human and moral cause. It is the plea of a people threatened with cultural, identity-based, and physical extinction.
It is a case where historical archives, old maps, testimonies, and contemporary evidence converge to affirm:
- Azawad exists.
- Its people exist.
And international justice can no longer turn a blind eye.
By Khamidoune Ag Toumast
24-11-24