Mali marks independence amid a worsening security crisis
The 66th anniversary comes as armed groups expand their reach and the government struggles to secure key supply routes.
Bamako, Mali – In Bamako, a fuel blockade has exposed the vulnerability of supply routes into the capital. In the north, separatist and armed groups have increasingly coordinated against the state, while the government faces questions over how much territory it can effectively control.
On September 10, less than two weeks before Mali’s independence anniversary, the Al Qaeda-affiliated armed group Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimeen (JNIM) attacked an army camp in Dioura in central Mali.
The attack followed an April offensive in which JNIM and the Tuareg-led Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), which seeks greater autonomy or independence for northern Mali, coordinated attacks on military and strategic sites in Bamako, Kati, Mopti, Gao and Kidal.
Mali’s government has framed its withdrawal from these institutions as an assertion of sovereignty. But Abubakar Abubakar Usman, a senior lecturer in international and strategic studies at the University of Malaysia, said Mali’s growing reliance on Russia complicates that argument.