The Songhai group Ganda Izo, a signatory to the 2015 peace agreement in Mali, has lost five of its members. They were killed on Wednesday by suspected jihadists, according to the secretary general of the movement.
« The manganese site in Tassiga (was) attacked, five elements of the self-defense movement were killed by the attackers, » said Secretary-General Abdourahmane Diallo, adding that the victims, members of Ganda Izo, were in charge of secure this mine located about forty kilometers from Ansongo and about sixty of the Nigerian border.
The attack is carried out by « terrorist groups », a term that usually refers to jihadist organizations linked to al Qaeda or the Islamic State group operating in northern and central Mali despite the presence of international forces for years. still affirmed Abdourahmane Diallo.
Self Defense Movement
Ganda Izo is an armed group created in 2009, posing as a self-defense movement of the Songhai, a people of the Niger River Valley. Like his predecessor Ganda Koy in the 1990s, Ganda Izo was used by the authorities to fight Tuareg separatists in the Gao region in 2012.
Northern Mali had fallen in March-April 2012 under the guise of jihadist groups linked to al-Qaeda, thanks to the defeat of the army in the face of the Tuareg-dominated rebellion, first allied to these groups, which then ousted him.
The jihadists were largely driven out or dispersed following the launch in January 2013, at the initiative of France, of a military intervention, which is currently ongoing.
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