Bamako: A French-led offensive against radical Islamists occupying northern Mali entered its third week on Friday amid concerns over a worsening humanitarian situation, and rights abuses.
French and Malian soldiers carried out joint patrols throughout the night some 200 kilometres (120 miles) south of Gao, an Islamist stronghold in Mali’s north which have been battered by air strikes, a military source said.
“It’s a first” in this region, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The patrols came a day after fresh bombing raids destroyed two Islamist bases in Ansongo, about 80 kilometres from Gao, and the nearby village of Seyna Sonrai.
Extremists seized Gao, along with two other key northern Mali towns, Kidal and fabled Timbuktu, 10 months ago, sparking fears that the vast semi-arid zone could become an Afghanistan-like haven for terrorists.
France swept to the aid of its former colony on January 11 as the Al Qaeda-linked Islamists broke south of their months-old frontline into government-held territory, seen as a threat to the capital Bamako.
Gao lies some 150 kilometres from the Niger border in eastern Mali, where more than 2,000 Chadian soldiers and 500 troops from Niger are being deployed to open a second front against the Islamists.
French NGO Action Against Hunger warned that the opening of a new front in Mali’s east could worsen an already dire food situation in the isolated area.
The organisation “fears strongly that an armed ground intervention from Niger will cut the last access route to supply basic goods (food and medicine)” to people in the region.
France’s surprise decision to intervene on January 11 has received broad international support but there has been increasing alarm about reports of rights abuses by Malian soldiers against ethnic Tuaregs and Arabs.
The International Federation of Human Rights Leagues said at least 31 people had been executed in the central town of Sevare, and some bodies dumped in wells, according to local researchers.
Human Rights Watch said witnesses had reported “credible information” of soldiers sexually abusing women in a village near Sevare.
Mali’s crisis began last January when the Tuareg desert nomads revived a decades-old rebellion for independence of the north, which they call Azawad.
They allied with hardline Islamists and seized Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu in a matter of days. The Islamists later broke with the Tuareg and imposed brutal sharia law in the towns under their control.
French air strikes have forced the extremists to flee their strongholds, and the offensive has successfully pushed them back from key central towns.
Officials and locals in the northern town of Timbuktu said the Islamists had fled following French air raids over the weekend which destroyed their headquarters, their fuel stocks and arms.
“It’s a ghost town,” said municipal official Moctar Ould Kery.
Cracks emerged in the rebel front Thursday when a faction announced it had broken away from Ansar Dine (Defenders of the Faith).
The newly formed Islamic Movement for Azawad said in a statement it “rejected all forms of extremism and terrorism and was committed to fighting them,” adding that it wanted a “peaceful solution” to the crisis.
The group, which said it was composed entirely of Malian nationals, called on Mali and France to cease hostilities in the zones it occupied in the northeastern regions of Kidal and Menaka.
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