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Ethnic tensions in Mali shut down Timbuktu ahead of Sunday vote

Ethnic tensions in Mali shut down Timbuktu ahead of Sunday vote

Mali

With just a few days to the July 29 vote, Mali’s security forces are still struggling to contain ethnic clashes in the country. On Wednesday, armed protesters from Mali’s Arab community fired shots into the air, burned tyres and torched vehicles in Timbuktu, officials said.

The Arab youths, mostly petty traders, were protesting against worsening insecurity and alleged ill treatment by security forces in northern Mali, which has been plagued by Islamist violence, Tuareg separatists and ethnic tensions ever since armed groups took over parts of the region in 2012.

Demonstrators filled the streets, forcing shops and banks to shut, witnesses said, though there were no reports of casualties.

ALSO READ: Everything you need to know about Mali 2018 presidential electionMalians will vote on Sunday in a presidential election in which President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita will seek a second term amid rising discontent over the government’s record on security.

“It’s deplorable,” Timbuktu’s mayor Abacrine Cisse told Reuters by telephone. “There are still gunmen in the town disturbing the peace. I’ve been in touch with all the community leaders to try to resolve this incident,” he said.

Mali’s restless ethnic groups

Northern Mali has been convulsed by violence at the hands of armed groups claiming to represent its various quarrelling communities for years. Earlier this year Timbuktu seemed to quieten down, but violence and lawlessness has been on the rise again in the last few months.

Residents said the trigger for the latest unrest was a robbery of a pharmacy owned by a black Bambara trader late on Tuesday.

Malian troops responded by arresting some armed Arab youths, sparking a gun battle in which no one was hurt. The soldiers arrested four youths, a local journalist on the scene said.

Timbuktu’s light-skinned Arab and Tuareg communities have long complained of being persecuted by Malian soldiers, made up mostly of black ethnic groups from the south and centre.

Violence in north and central Mali is so widespread that some Malians doubt the election will be held in some parts, though the West African country has a long history of relatively peaceful elections.

REUTERS

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