Mali Travel Alerts & Dangers
Mali is not a stable country. For long times that war, army clashes with Tuaregs have taken part of Mali daily life. On this page I’ll try to update news related to Travel warning around the country.
Western tourists kidnapped by Tuareg
Friday 23 January 2009
Unknown assailants kidnapped a group of European tourists on Thursday, including two Swiss, one German and a Briton, in Niger near the Malian border, a regional governor in Mali said.
“We just finished the latest verification and there are a total of four European tourists kidnapped on Niger’s territory close to the border with Mali: one German national, one British national and two Swiss nationals,” General Amadou Baba Toure, governor of Gao province, told AFP.
The group had been returning from a festival of nomad culture at Anderamboukane, on the border between Mali and Niger, when they were seized, the Malian authorities said.
A source in the Malian security forces confirmed the kidnapping, adding that it took place at Bani-Bangou, 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the border with Mali.
Germany’s foreign ministry confirmed it had received information that a German woman had disappeared in Mali.
“The foreign ministry and the (German) embassy in Bamako are following information that a German woman disappeared today in the middle of the day in Mali,” a ministry spokesman told AFP.
“They are trying to shed light on what happened.”
In London, Britain’s foreign ministry said it had heard the reports of the kidnapping but could not confirm British nationals were involved.
The north of Mali has been the scene of violent clashes between Tuareg rebel groups and the Malian army in recent years.
The Tuareg are a nomadic desert people who have roamed the southern Sahara for centuries. In recent years they have staged uprisings in both Mali and Niger, claiming autonomy for their traditional homeland.
Two Canadian diplomats, one of them the United Nations envoy to Niger, disappeared in Niger in early December and are presumed kidnapped.
The car UN envoy Robert Fowler and his assistant Louis Guay were traveling in was discovered on December 15 at the side of the road in an apparently trouble-free area close to the capital Niamey. It’s engine was running and the vehicle’s doors were wide open.
Last week Niger’s President Mamadou Tandja said the diplomats were being held by terrorist groups.
“All the investigations undertaken indicate they are being held hostage by terrorist groups,” Tanja said, referring to Tuareg rebel groups operating in the north of the country.
http://www.france24.com/en/20090122-tuaregs-kidnap-western-tourists-mali-officials-niger-rebels
Video Tuareg Camp in Mali
Travel Alert by the US Department of State
January 07, 2009
This Travel Alert is being issued to alert U.S. citizens of a kidnapping threat against Westerners who attend the “Festival in the Desert” at Essakane (65 kilometres north of Timbuktu) from January 8-10, and to reiterate that visitors should avoid northern Mali, including Essakane and Essouk (500 kilometers north east of Timbuktu) where the “Sahara Nights” festival is held. This replaces the Travel Alert for Mali issued on December 10, 2008 to update information on areas of concern, and to strongly urge U.S. citizens against travel to northern Mali. It expires on April 15, 2009.
Because of recent armed conflicts, kidnappings, armed robberies, and the continued presence of Al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the Department of State strongly urges that U.S. citizens avoid all travel to northern Mali. AQIM has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States. The presence of AQIM and Tuareg rebel groups in northern Mali presents serious potential dangers to travelers.
Areas of particular concern include the Mali-Niger, Mali-Algeria, and Mali-Mauritania borders, the Kidal region, and areas north of Timbuktu, including Essakane. The Department of State has information that Westerners attending Timbuktu’s Festival in the Desert at Essakane, scheduled for January 8-10, 2009, may be targeted for kidnapping.
Travelers in Mali should be aware that visits by U.S. government employees to Timbuktu, the region of Kidal, and areas to the north and east of the town of Gao, must be approved by the Embassy’s Chief of Mission due to security concerns. Individuals traveling north of Timbuktu or to the region of Kidal often travel with Malian military escorts. However, an August 2007 attack by Tuareg rebels on a convoy escorted by Malian military personnel illustrates that this does not ensure safety.
While the government of Mali is working to strengthen security in northern Mali and achieve a peaceful settlement with Tuareg rebels, northern Mali remains unstable. On December 20, 2008, Tuareg rebels attacked the Malian military base in Nampala, the northernmost town in the central region of Segou. Subsequent security incidents involving Tuareg rebels occurred near the towns of Nara, Goumbou, and Mouridah in the region of Koulikoro on December 24-27. On October 31, 2008, in northern Mali, AQIM freed two Austrian tourists kidnapped in Tunisia eight months earlier. On October 16, 2008, bandits in the Kidal region of Mali carjacked two vehicles belonging to the International Committee for the Red Cross. Disparate Tuareg rebel groups attacked Malian military units in Tessalit in July 2008, in Abeibara in May 2008, and in Tinzawaten and Bourghessa in March 2008. On January 3, 2008, four Italians were robbed at gunpoint near Araouane, Mali, 150 miles north of Timbuktu by assailants whose affiliation remains unknown.
In September 2007, armed rebels attacked the Malian military garrison at Tinzawaten. On August 30, 2007, a truck transporting civilians from Algeria to Tinzawaten, Mali, hit a landmine, killing at least 14 people. On August 26-27, 2007, Tuareg dissidents attacked and kidnapped civilian and military convoys near the Mali-Niger border.
http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/pa/pa_3835.html
Battle at military post in Nampala
Saturday 20 December 2008
Nine soldiers were killed and 12 wounded in an attack Saturday attributed to Tuareg rebels on a military post at Nampala in the north of Mali, the defence ministry announced early Sunday.
The ministry said 11 “assailants” had been killed and “many wounded.”
A source close to rebel leader Ibrahim Ag Bahanga told AFP earlier that at least 20 Malian soldiers had been killed.
The defence ministry said in a statement that on Saturday morning the post at Nampala 500 kilometres (300 miles) bortheast of Bamako “was attacked by a gang linked to drug traffickers. Toll: army and security forces, nine dead and 12 wounded; assailants, 11 dead and many wounded.”
Questioned by AFP a ministry official said the “assailants” had arrived in vehicles formally identified as those belonging to drug traffickers.
“We were looking for these vehicles, so those who came in them must be linked to the drug traffic,” the source said.
Earlier the source close to Ag Bahanga said: “We gained the upper hand in the attack because we were prepared. On the army side there were more than 20 dead. We regret that, but it was them or us. We have wounded on our side.”
Ag Bahanga has called for the army to leave the nearby town of Tinezawaten. The army has always refused, saying that it is used by international drug traffickers with whom Ag Bahanga is accused of being involved.
A local administration official in Nampala said there were “dead and wounded on both sides” but was unable to provide further details of the attack, launched overnight with the apparent aim of capturing the town’s barracks.
Other officials said troop reinforcements had been dispatched earlier to the town, which lies near the border with Mauritania.
An independent source in the region, contacted by AFP, said civilians had been killed in the clashes.
The attacks came days after Mali’s President Amadou Toumani Toure called on Tuareg rebels operating in the northern desert regions to lay down their arms and agree on a new peace deal.
Tuareg rebels regrouped recently in the mountainous regions close to the Algerian and Mauritanian borders and are calling on the government to honour an agreement signed between the two sides in 2006.
In the deal, rebels dropped their demand for autonomy for the Kidal region after the government pledged to speed up the development of three northern regions in Mali.
The president also said he planned to visit the city of Kidal shortly, the provincial capital of the Kidal region where the majority of the rebels operate.
The Tuaregs are a nomadic desert people who have roamed the southern Sahara for centuries. In recent years they have staged uprisings in both Mali and Niger claiming autonomy for their traditional homeland.
http://www.france24.com/en/20081220-clash-between-government-troops-tuareg-rebels-leaves-20-dead-
Ceasefire between Malian govt and Tuareg rebels
Monday 21 July 2008
Mali’s government and Tuareg rebels reached a ceasefire agreement on Monday to end almost a year of sporadic clashes in the country’s vast northern desert, Algeria’s official APS news agency said.
The truce came after four days of talks in the Algerian capital between government envoys and members of the rebel Democratic Alliance for Change mediated by Algeria’s ambassador to Mali, Abdelkrim Ghrib.
“The two delegations representing the government of Mali and the Democratic Alliance for Change reached on Monday in Algiers an agreement on the cessation of hostilities,” APS quoted Ghrib as saying.
“We reached a series of decisions including the need to stop hostilities between the two conflicting parties and ensure the enforcement on the ground and monitoring of this (ceasefire)”.
A team of 200 members representing both parties was set up to oversee the implementation of the agreement, APS said.
Ghrib said the parties had stressed the need to address remaining issues such as the fate of refugees, prisoners on both sides and families who had sought refuge in the border region.
Mali, Africa’s third-biggest gold producer, has struggled to end the escalating rebellion by the Tuareg nomads who took up arms last year demanding greater rights for their people.
Tuareg live in various countries across the Sahara.
Mali’s army, backed and trained by the United States as part of Washington’s “war on terrorism”, accuses the rebels of trying to control cross-border smuggling routes for arms and drugs.
The conflict follows similar rebellions in the 1960s and 1990s by the Tuareg, who traditionally oppose inference from outsiders.
The new round of talks in Algiers followed the failure of a recent ceasefire deal mediated by the Gaddafi Foundation, a charitable organisation chaired by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam.
The Algiers talks aimed to ensure that all parties in the conflict respect commitments made in a 2006 Algerian-brokered deal for the Kidal region in northeast Mali, APS quoted a diplomatic source as saying on Sunday.
That agreement involved several clauses including an economic development plan for Kidal. Ghrib said the latest ceasefire honoured the spirit of the 2006 agreement.
http://www.france24.com/en/20080721-mali-goverment-tuareg-rebels-ceasefire-talks
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