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Published on July 26, 2018 at 07:58
By Reuters
GAO, Mali – Armed protesters from Mali's Arab community fired shots in the air, burned tires and Burnt down vehicles in Timbuktu On Wednesday, the desert city stopped a few days before an election deemed a stability test across the country, officials said.
Maimouna Moro / MANILA BULLETIN
Young Arabs, mostly small traders, were protesting against Escalation of insecurity and alleged ill-treatment by security forces in northern Mali, prey to Islamist violence, Tuareg separatists and ethnic tensions. Since then, armed groups have invaded parts of the region in 2012.
Protesters flooded the streets, forcing shops and banks to close, witnesses said, although no deaths were reported. has been reported.
in which President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita will seek a second term while the government is increasingly dissatisfied with the government's record on security.
"It's deplorable," Reuters Abacrine Cisse, mayor of Timbuktu, told Reuters. "There are still gunmen in the city who are disturbing the peace, I have been in contact with all the community leaders to try to resolve this incident," he said.
Northern Mali has been convulsed by the violence of armed groups claiming to represent its various quarrel communities for years. Earlier this year, Timbuktu seemed to calm down, but violence and lawlessness have increased again in recent months.
Residents said the outbreak of the latest unrest was a robbery of a pharmacy owned by a black bambara trader. Tuesday.
Malian troops retaliated by arresting armed Arab youths, triggering a shootout in which no one was injured. Soldiers arrested four youths, according to local journalist at the scene
Timbuktu's light-skinned Arab and Tuareg communities have long complained of being persecuted by Malian soldiers, mostly black southern ethnic groups and from the center
. Violence in northern and central Mali is so widespread that some Malians doubt that the election may be held in certain regions, although the country of West Africa has a long history relatively peaceful elections
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