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  Mali shuts schools and universities as jihadist blockade worsens fuel crisis   Basillioh Rukanga, BBC News ,  27 October 2025. 

Article shared by Tom McDermott Click here for the article.   See AI update from  UNICEF  , UN and other sources below. Summary JNIM, an al-Qaeda-affiliated group, is intensifying attacks across the Sahel (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger), making it the global epicenter of jihadi violence. Exploiting weak governance and instability exacerbated by recent coups, JNIM seeks to establish a Salafi-Islamist state and is expanding its threat towards coastal West African states. Quotes "The militant threat is progressively spreading southward towards coastal West African states like Benin and Togo, raising alarms about potential regional instability." "The Sahel region is now considered the global epicenter of jihadi violence, accounting for over half of all terrorism-related deaths in 2024." The following update is composed with AI. It builds on the Washington Post article and statements by UNICEF, UN and Human Rights Watch sources. Click here for UNICEF and additional source...

Giles Fagninou, RD WCARO "......cases of recruitment and use of children in armed groups along with killings and maiming increased by more than 130 per cent between the two time periods." .".....several hundred people were reported killed in Burkina Faso, with reports that more than 220 civilians, including 56 children, were killed in attacks reportedly carried out by the military in two villages on a single day in late February." "Between February and April, over 1,180 security incidents were reported, which claimed the lives nearly 3,400 people." Click here for Global Issues - UNICEF reports surge of violence "Ensuring the protection of children is critical, and the violent incidents in the central Sahel region must stop if children are to realise their basic rights to life under the international Convention on the Rights of the Child and the regional African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. “UNICEF calls on all involved in the ongoi...

Some 22 United Nations peacekeepers have been injured in northern Mali after their convoy was hit by two improved explosive devices (IEDs) as they continued their withdrawal from the country amid deteriorating security. There have now been six incidents since the peacekeepers left their base in northern Kidal on October 31 to make the estimated 350km (220-mile) journey to Gao, injuring a total of at least 39 peacekeepers, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Monday. “On Saturday, the convoy encountered two other improvised explosive devices near the town of Anefis,” Dujarric told reporters in New York, saying he did not know if the devices had been there for a long time or whether the peacekeepers were deliberately targeted. The injured were evacuated by air for medical treatment in Gao, he added. Eight peacekeepers were injured and evacuated on November 1 and a further seven last Friday as a result of IEDs. In June, Mali’s military rulers ordered the nearly 15,000-strong peacekeepin...

Tuareg rebels take control as UN leaves Kidal Summary: U.N. accelerates withdrawal from Mali as fighting increases Kidal base left to rebels as peacekeepers move out Restrictions by Mali junta jeopardising U.N. troops and kit DAKAR, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Before United Nations peacekeepers hurriedly abandoned their base in Kidal in northern Mali on Tuesday, they made a costly call: with insurgents stationed nearby, they destroyed sensitive equipment to avoid it falling into the wrong hands, the U.N. said. Shortly after the last U.N. convoy rolled out, the ethnic Tuareg rebels announced they had taken over the base . Photos posted on social media on Wednesday appeared to show locals loading trucks with looted goods, including tyres, cables and chairs. Mali's ruling military junta in June ordered the decade-old UN mission, known as MINUSMA, to leave as its relations soured with former international allies. MINUSMA has accelerated its departure in recent weeks as northern Mali has been en...

United Nations peacekeepers on Tuesday withdrew from Kidal, in an area which is a rebel stronghold in northern Mali weeks earlier than planned because of insecurity, leaving the town in the hands of ethnic Tuareg separatists. The U.N. peacekeeping mission known as MINUSMA has now departed eight of its 13 bases after Mali’s junta earlier this year ordered the 15,000-strong mission to leave the West African country, claiming it had failed in its mission in trying to contain an Islamic extremist insurgency. “The conditions for the departure of all these bases were extremely difficult and trying, for a variety of reasons — all completely beyond the mission’s control — including the deterioration of the security situation and the resulting multiple threats to peacekeepers," MINUSMA said in a statement confirming the latest departure. About 850 U.N. peacekeepers had been based in Kidal along with 150 other mission personnel. An employee with MINUSMA told The Associated Press that the pe...

Islamic State extremists have almost doubled the territory they control in Mali in less than a year, and their al-Qaida-linked rivals are capitalizing on the deadlock and perceived weakness of armed groups that signed a 2015 peace agreement , United Nations experts said in a new report. The stalled implementation of the peace deal and sustained attacks on communities have offered the IS group and al-Qaida affiliates a chance “to re-enact the 2012 scenario,” they said. That’s the year when a military coup took place in the West African country and rebels in the north formed an Islamic state two months later. The extremist rebels were forced from power in the north with the help of a French-led military operation, but they moved from the arid north to more populated central Mali in 2015 and remain active. In August 2020, Mali’s president was overthrown in a coup that included an army colonel who carried out a second coup and was sworn in as president in June 2021. He developed ties to R...

Mali's troops and its foreign security partners, believed to be Russia's Wagner mercenaries, are using violence against women and other "grave human rights abuses" to spread terror, U.N. sanctions monitors said in a report seen by Reuters on Monday. The monitors also warned in their report to the U.N Security Council that the sexual violence by Mali's troops and their foreign security partners is "systematic." They said the foreign partners were "presumed to be elements of the Wagner Group." Mali has long been battling an Islamist insurgency and the West African country's junta, which seized power in coups in 2020 and 2021, teamed up with Russia's Wagner mercenary group in 2021. There are about 1,000 Wagner fighters in Mali. Western countries have long raised concerns over Wagner's activities in Mali. The United States has imposed sanctions on Wagner and Malian officials and repeatedly warned of what it says are Wagner's destab...

Summary of the key points from the article: - The UN peacekeeping mission in Mali (MINUSMA) is shutting down after 10 years due to deteriorating security conditions and strained relations between Mali's military government and Western partners.  - This marks the end of an era of large, multidimensional UN peacekeeping operations in Africa. MINUSMA was one of the UN's biggest and most dangerous missions with over 12,000 troops. - The closure highlights the limits of UN peacekeeping in the face of Islamic extremism, poor governance, and conflicts spilling over from Libya and the Sahel. - It raises questions about the future of UN peacekeeping in Africa as missions face more hostile forces and restrictive host governments.  - The UN may need to shift to more nimble, political missions rather than large military deployments. But demand for peacekeeping remains high despite the challenges. - The closure of MINUSMA after Mali restricted the mission's operations underscores the ne...

The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Friday to immediately end its peacekeeping mission in Mali as demanded by the country’s military junta, which has brought in mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group to help fight an Islamic insurgency. Mali has grappled with the insurgency for over a decade. It has seen its relations with the international community become strained in part because the ruling junta brought in the Wagner mercenaries. The French-drafted resolution, adopted by a 15-0 vote, terminates the mandate of the peacekeeping mission known as MINUSMA as of Friday. It orders the mission to start the withdrawal Saturday of more than 15,000 personnel, to be completed by the end of the year.

With Russia at Its Side, Mali's Military Government Marches Toward Renewing War in the North Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of Russia arriving in Bamako, Mali, greeted by his Malian counterpart, Abdoulaye Diop, Feb. 6, 2023. . ABDOULAYE DIOP/TWITTER Click here to read the original article in PassBlue The Malian military government, boosted by its closer alliance to Russia, is planning to drop a 2015 peace accord with separatist rebel and jihadist groups and renew war in the country’s north. A little more than 11 years after a jihadist and Tuareg separatist alliance stormed northern Mali and wrested control of the main cities of Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal from the Malian state, the two sides are set to take arms against each other again. The Malian military government, bolstered by a closer alliance with Moscow and public support for its nationalist policies, is preparing to discard the past decade’s French-led peace strategy for a risky renewed war that would rely on Russia against re...

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on Monday said he was deeply disturbed by the Malian authorities’ decision to declare the top UN Human Rights representative in the country as persona non grata. “I deeply regret the decision by the Malian authorities to declare my representative, Guillaume Ngefa, as persona non grata and to order him to leave the country in 48 hours. I have been very troubled by the intimidation and harassment he has faced in social media in recent months,” said Türk. “United Nations staff must never be threatened or sanctioned for doing their work, which is based on the United Nations Charter.” “I have full confidence in Mr Ngefa’s professionalism and his dedication to the promotion and protection of human rights in Mali. I call on the interim authorities in Mali to rescind this regrettable decision without delay.” The measure was announced in a Government communiqué dated 5 February, asserting that Ngefa, the Director of the Human Rights Division of...

Guillaume Ngefa-Atondoko Andali  The Malian interim government says the head of the United Nations peacekeeping mission’s human rights division has been asked to leave the country within 48 hours after being declared persona non grata. The Malian government said the decision was due to the UN mission chief’s choice of civil society witnesses for UN Security Council briefings. In a statement on Sunday, it said the decision to expel Guillaume Ngefa-Atondoko Andali was connected to his allegedly biased choice of civil society witnesses for UN Security Council briefings on Mali, the most recent of which was held on January 27. The Malian authorities have come under pressure for alleged human rights violations and abuses reportedly perpetrated by Malian armed forces in partnership with the Russian private military contractor Wagner Group in Mali. On January 31, UN experts called for an independent investigation into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity by both these forces. ...