Mali war facts for kids
The Mali War is an ongoing armed conflict that started in January 2012 between the northern and southern parts of Mali in Africa. On 16 January 2012, several insurgent groups began fighting a campaign against the Malian government for independence or greater autonomy for northern Mali, which they called Azawad. The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), an organization fighting to make this area of Mali an independent homeland for the Tuareg people, had taken control of the region by April 2012.
On 22 March 2012, President Amadou Toumani Touré was ousted in a coup d'état over his handling of the crisis, a month before a presidential election was to have taken place. Mutinous soldiers, calling themselves the National Committee for the Restoration of Democracy and State (CNRDR), took control and suspended the constitution of Mali. As a consequence of the instability following the coup, Mali's three largest northern cities—Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu—were overrun by the rebels on three consecutive days. On 5 April 2012, after the capture of Douentza, the MNLA said that it had accomplished its goals and called off its offensive. The following day, it proclaimed the independence of northern Mali from the rest of the country, renaming it Azawad.
The MNLA were initially backed by the Islamist group Ansar Dine. After the Malian military was driven from northern Mali, Ansar Dine and a number of smaller Islamist groups began imposing strict Sharia law. The MNLA and Islamists struggled to reconcile their conflicting visions for an intended new state. Afterwards, the MNLA began fighting against Ansar Dine and other Islamist groups, including Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA/MUJAO), a splinter group of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. By 17 July 2012, the MNLA had lost control of most of northern Mali's cities to the Islamists.
The government of Mali asked for foreign military help to re-take the north. On 11 January 2013, the French military began operations against the Islamists. Forces from other African Union states were deployed shortly after. By 8 February, the Islamist-held territory had been re-taken by the Malian military, with help from the international coalition. Tuareg separatists have continued to fight the Islamists as well, although the MNLA has also been accused of carrying out attacks against the Malian military.
A peace deal between the government and Tuareg rebels was signed on 18 June 2013, however on 26 September 2013 the rebels pulled out of the peace agreement and claimed that the government had not respected its commitments to the truce. In mid-2014, the French military in Mali ended its Operation Serval and transitioned to the broader regional counterterrorist effort, Operation Barkhane. Despite a ceasefire agreement signed on 19 February 2015 in Algiers, Algeria, and a peace accord in the capital on 15 April 2015, fighting continued.
Starting in 2018, there was an increase in rebel attacks in the Sahel, accompanied by a French troop surge. Mali experienced two successful coups in 2020 and 2021, both orchestrated by the Malian military. After the Malian coup in 2021, the government and French forces in the country had a falling out, with the former demanding the latter's withdrawal. Amid popular Malian anti-French protests and increasing involvement in the war by the Russian mercenary Wagner Group, the French withdrew their forces from the country entirely by August 15, 2022, ending their presence in the country.
Background
In the early 1990s Tuareg and Arab nomads formed the People's Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MPA) and declared war for independence of the northern part of Mali. Despite peace agreements with the government of Mali in 1991 and 1995 a growing dissatisfaction among the former Tuareg fighters, who had been integrated into the Military of Mali, led to new fighting in 2007. Despite historically having difficulty maintaining alliances between secular and Islamist factions the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad allied itself with the Islamist groups Ansar Dine and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and began the 2012 Northern Mali conflict.
The MNLA was an offshoot of a political movement known as the National Movement for Azawad (MNA) prior to the insurgency. After the end of the Libyan Civil War, an influx of weaponry led to the arming of the Tuareg in their demand for independence. The strength of this uprising and the use of heavy weapons, which were not present in the previous conflicts, were said to have "surprised" Malian officials and observers.
Though dominated by Tuaregs, the MNLA claimed that they represented other ethnic groups as well, and were reportedly joined by some Arab leaders. The MNLA's leader Bilal Ag Acherif said that the onus was on Mali to either give the Saharan peoples their self-determination or they would take it themselves.
Another Tuareg-dominated group, the Islamist Ansar Dine (Defenders of Faith), initially fought alongside the MNLA against the government. Unlike the MNLA, it did not seek independence but rather the imposition of Islamic law (Sharia) across Mali. The movement's leader Iyad Ag Ghaly was part of the early 1990s rebellion and has been reported to be linked to an offshoot of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) that is led by his cousin Hamada Ag Hama as well as Algeria's Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité (DRS).
Mali was going through several crises at once that favored the rise of the conflict:
- State crisis: the establishment of a Tuareg state has been a long-term goal of the MNLA, since it began a rebellion in 1962. Thereafter, Mali has been in a constant struggle to maintain its territory.
- Food crisis: Mali's economy has an extreme dependence on outside assistance, which has led Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to blockade, to subdue the military junta.
- Political crisis: The mutiny led to the fall of the president.
Images for kids
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A Tuareg technical in northern Mali
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Islamist fighters in northern Mali
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Islamist fighters in northern Mali
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Pro-government militia members training in Sevare
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Pro-government militia members training in Sevare
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French troops arrived in Bamako
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French Mirage 2000 refuels over Africa on 2 February 2013.
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French soldiers in Gao, March or April 2013
See also
In Spanish: Guerra de Malí para niños
