The Tuareg separatists announced the lifting of the blockade that they had established at the end of December on the main roads of northern Mali after the capture of several localities by the Malian army, they indicated in a press release sent to AFP on Saturday.
“All blockades are lifted on the routes from the Algerian border to the cities of Timbuktu and Gao
,” declared the Permanent Strategic Framework (CSP), an alliance of armed rebel groups.
The predominantly Tuareg rebel groups lost control of several localities in the north at the end of 2023 after an offensive by the Malian army which culminated in the capture of Kidal, a bastion of independence demands and a major sovereignty issue for the central state.
“The blockade was to stifle the junta's administration and show that the Malian armed forces do not control much outside of large cities. The lifting is to relieve the populations and traders who have been seriously impacted by the decision
,” Almou Ag Mohamed, spokesperson for the CSP, told AFP.
Russian allies
Hostilities resumed in August 2023 after eight years of calm between the belligerents, who competed for control of the territory and military camps left by the blue helmets of the UN Mission pushed out by Bamako.
The colonels who took power by force in 2020 achieved a widely praised symbolic success in Mali, but the rebels did not lay down their arms and dispersed in this desert and mountainous region.
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They had announced a blockade of all products and all types of means of transport in a region already affected by jihadist violence.
The Malian forces were supported in their reconquest by Russian mercenaries according to the rebels and local elected officials, although the junta denies their presence in the country.
The offensive in northern Mali has been marked by numerous allegations of abuses against civilians by Malian forces and their Russian allies, which the Malian authorities systematically deny.