Source : Sahel weather February 2025

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On the evening of Friday February 10, suspected jihadists attacked a convoy of civilian vehicles escorted by the Malian army and mercenaries from the Russian group Wagner in the north of the country. The attack targeted the village of Kobé, thirty-five kilometers from Gao. According to the results of army combing operations, "nineteen bodies of abandoned terrorists" were found. According to Agence France Presse (AFP), a local NGO source put the death toll at "thirty-two civilians and soldiers". The Malian army reported 25 civilians killed and 13 wounded. According to the testimony of a  official localinterviewed by RFI, "the convoy's passengers were mainly gold miners - some of them foreign - on their way to a site near the Intahaka artisanal gold mine, close to Niger." Following the tragedy, on February 10, Gao transporters went on strike to denounce the ongoing insecurity in the region, calling for better security on the Ansongo-Gao axis. A week later, on February 16 and 17, the Malian army, with the Wagner group at its side, carried out a series of operations in the Kidal and Gao regions. During these operations, seven pro-independence rebels from the Front de Libération de l'Azawad were killed, according to RFI, which also mentions the death of 28 civilians following these operations.

A few days earlier, on February 12, sixteen people perished in a terrorist attack in the village of Berta in the Ségou region, located in the inter-river of the Macina circle, and attributed to the Macina Katiba of the Jnim, the Groupe de Soutien à l'Islam et aux Musulmans. The Jnim's jihadist blockade of the town of Léré, which lies on an axis linking the Segou and Timbuktu regions, has been lifted. The town had been under embargo for almost two months. Meanwhile, a similar blockade has been in place for almost a year in the village of Diosso in Ségou.

Aborted return of Imam Dicko

Having been living in Algeria since December 2023, the return of the influential politico-religious leader and former president of Mali's High Islamic Council, Mahmoud Dicko, was originally scheduled for February 14 . In the end, Imam Dicko has not yet returned to Mali. Fearing possible disruptions due to gatherings of the Imam's supporters, the government has deployed a large security force in Bamako. "The aim is to avoid any outbursts," say the security forces, while the Imam's supporters say they have cancelled his visit to "[refuse] to offer a pretext for any confrontation.

The situation is made all the more tense by the fact that on February 5, Daouda Magassa, a close friend of Imam Dicko, was kidnapped by State Security and is now being held in Bamako. Daouda is in charge of religious issues for CMAS, the Coordination of Movements, Associations and Sympathizers of Imam Mahmoud Dicko, and is also one of the spokesmen for the Imam's return commission. Ten supporters of Imam Dicko were placed under arrest on February 17. They are accused of "unlawful assembly" on February 14, the day of the supposed return of the influential Imam. Among them was a senior citizen, who was eventually released.

Political disagreements

Begun in July 2024, the work of the drafting commission for the "National Charter for Peace and Reconciliation" is continuing. The charter aims to lay the foundations for lasting peace and promote national cohesion in a country marked by more than a decade of violence. The charter has been criticized by some for what they see as a lack of inclusiveness. On February 17, the Working Commission launched a series of consultations in Bamako. But key players such as the Front de libération de l'Azawad (FLA) and personalities such as Amadou Koufa and Iyad Ag Ghaly are not taking part in these consultations. In addition, over 200 of the 500 or so political parties have boycotted meetings with the commission. Further proof of the national dissensus underway, former transitional Prime Minister Choguel Maïga - who was sacked last November - has levelled fresh criticism at the government. At a press conference in Bamako on February 22, Choguel Maïga claimed that the government had "definitively sounded the death knell of the pact of honor of May 24 2021 [with] the M5-RFP", his political group. "The break is complete (...) A sort of spectre of confusion and amalgam hangs over the Transition", he continued.

Buoyed by these developments, the transitional government officially launched the DDR-1 "Disarmament, Demobilization, Reintegration" program on February 11. Begun as part of the 2015 Algiers peace agreement, this program aims to reintegrate combatants from armed groups in the north and center of the country into the army. According to the Malian authorities, 2,000 ex-combatants will be reintegrated as 2nd-class soldiers, in addition to the socio-economic reintegration of 1,000 others, in this case those from the operational coordination mechanism.