Mali

[…] In a statement published on Thursday, HRW accused Africa Corps of carrying out the killings in the presence of Malian soldiers at the beginning of last month.

Mali President Assimi Goïta on Thursday pardoned a French national who had been sentenced to 20 years in prison. Last year, Mali's military-led government accused Yann Vézilier, an official from the French embassy, of being involved in a plot to destabilise the West African country.

Open-source investigators have confirmed two drone strikes in northern Mali involving Shahed-136-type loitering munitions in the villages of Inafarak and Talahandak, near the Algerian border. … The Shahed-136 is a long-range one-way attack drone originally developed in Iran and now also manufactured in Russia.

Mara had been detained last August and charged with undermining the credibility of the state and spreading false information.

Summary killings of at least 19 Malian soldiers by members of armed groups in Tabrichat, a village in the Gao region, in northern Mali, must be investigated as war crimes, Amnesty International said after analyzing video footage of the incident which took place after the soldiers were ambushed on 18 July.

The Council today appointed Ms. Birgitte Nygaard Markussen as the new European Union Special Representative (EUSR) for the Sahel region. She will take up her duties on 1 September 2026 for an initial mandate of 12 months, until 31 August 2027. She succeeds João Cravinho, who has served as the EUSR for the Sahel since November 2024.

At least 50 Malian soldiers were killed after a joint Malian army and Russia’s Africa Corps convoy was ambushed near Anefis in northern Mali. Tuareg separatists and al Qaeda linked fighters claimed responsibility as footage showed captured soldiers, destroyed military vehicles and bodies at the scene.

[…] DPO recently launched the lessons learned report “MINUSMA: A Peace That Was Not Enough,” which examines the decade-long deployment of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), which concluded its withdrawal in late 2023. The report identifies implications that extend beyond Mali and are directly relevant to the future of UN peacekeeping.

Insurgents attacked several towns in northern, central and southern Mali on Saturday, targeting army bases and a prison near the capital, Bamako. The assaults involved the Tuareg separatist group FLA, which seeks an independent Azawad state in northern Mali and JNIM, which aims to impose strict Islamic rule. The violence, along with attacks in April, reveals the huge security problem facing Mali’s military leaders, who staged coups in 2020 and 2021 promising to end what is now a more than decade-long uprising.

Since September 2025, Mali has been subjected to a strategy of asphyxiation aimed at cutting off essential supplies entering and circulating within the country. By intensifying offensives against fuel convoys in the south and west, JNIM is paralysing national commerce and trade. But this is extending beyond Malian borders, threatening regional economic activity.