Latest Mali News
Activists plant trees in Mali but residents strip them for firewood. They say there's no choice
BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — After years of serving as Mali's minister of the environment, Aida M'bo now spends her time planting trees in a fight that many in the arid West African country acknowledge they are losing. “Deforestation is an important issue in Mali,” she said, standing in...
Mali arrests top politician for criticizing Burkina Faso's ruling junta
BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — Mali's ruling junta arrested one of the country's top politicians Wednesday for criticizing the military rulers of neighboring Burkina Faso, according to his son and a judiciary source. Issa Kaou N’Djim, who previously supported Mali's current military leader...
Mali detains top executive and 2 others from an Australian gold mining company over dispute
YAOUNDE, Cameroon (AP) — The military junta in Mali has arrested the top executive and two other employees of Australia’s gold mining company Resolute Mining while they were visiting the country for talks over an unspecified dispute, the company said Monday. The three –...
The head of Mali's military junta appoints himself to the highest rank in the army
BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — The head of the military junta that seized power in Mali in 2020 promoted himself Wednesday to the rank of army general with special title: Colonel Assimi Goita of the land army, the highest military distinction held only by two former heads of state in the country’s...
Mali's traditional theater gives psychiatric patients the stage
BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — In the courtyard of a psychiatric ward in Mali’s capital, a small group of patients acts out scenes of a village dispute to the beat of a djembe, a traditional West African drum. One patient, Mamadou Diarra, cries out to another in the Bambara language,...
Burkina Faso’s junta suspends Voice of America broadcasts over coverage of militant violence
ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Burkina Faso’s military junta has suspended Voice of America's broadcasts for three months over its coverage of militant attacks in the country and in neighboring Mali, the state news agency reported, in the latest measure targeting media freedom in the country. ...
In Senegal, the bastion of the region's Francophonie, French is giving way to local languages
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — For decades Senegal, a former French colony in West Africa, has been touted as the bastion of the French language in the region. Leopold Sedar Senghor, the country’s first president and a poet, is considered one of the founding fathers of the concept of Francophonie, a...
Military juntas in 3 West African nations investigate a French journalist over jihadi analysis
NIAMEY, Niger (AP) — Prosecutors in military junta-ruled Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso launched investigations on Wednesday against the French journalist and researcher Wassim Nasr into what they called his “apology of terrorism” and “complicity” in alleged terrorist acts, in the latest...
Media freedom group sounds alarm on increased security risks for local journalists in Africa's Sahel
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Local journalists in the Sahel region of Africa are facing increased security risks, a media freedom group said Tuesday, as extremist attacks and military coups have shaken the region in recent years. At least two community radio journalists were killed and...
Attacks by Islamic extremists are rampant in Africa's Sahel. Here's what we know about them
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Extremist attacks in Sahel, an arid swath of land south of the Sahara in Africa, have proliferated in recent months: Last week, Islamic militants attacked Bamako, the capital of Mali, for the first time in almost a decade, demonstrating their capacity to carry out large...
