Mali’s Defence Minister Sadio Camara was killed in an attack on his residence, the government said in a statement read on state television on Sunday (April 26), marking a high-profile death during coordinated assaults staged a day earlier by insurgents, Reuters reports.
A car laden with explosives driven by a suicide attacker rammed Camara’s home in the town of Kati, near Bamako, triggering a firefight in which he was wounded and later died in hospital, government spokesperson Issa Ousmane Coulibaly said in the broadcast statement. The government declared two days of national mourning.
The regional al Qaeda affiliate, Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, known as JNIM, cooperated with a Tuareg-dominated rebel group to carry out simultaneous attacks in over half a dozen places across the country, according to claims by both groups.
The government has not provided an overall death toll.
The strikes hit sites near Bamako, including Kati and the airport area, as well as northern towns such as Mopti, Sevare and Gao, while the situation in the strategic city of Kidal remained unclear. The Tuareg-led Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) said it had taken the town, but Mali’s army said operations there were ongoing.
The assault underscores the persistent threat facing the military-led government of Assimi Goita, which has struggled to contain insurgent violence despite intensified operations. The United Nations condemned the attacks and called for an international response to worsening insecurity across the Sahel.
