An airport in central Mali was hit by shells, the regional governor said on Tuesday, the latest unrest just six days before the country votes for a president.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack overnight, but jihadist groups with links to al Qaeda
and Islamic State have intensified deadly raids this year across the desert of central and northern
Mali, parts of which have become ungovernable.
The government has repeatedly said the election, due on July 29, will go ahead despite the turmoil.
President Ibrahim Keita is bidding for a second term, facing former finance minister Soumaila Cisse and
two dozen other candidates.
While the militants have not specifically threatened the running of the vote, the violence threatens
to seriously dent turnout in polls that some observers hoped would chart a way out of years of political
and ethnic unrest.
The extent of any damage at the airport near the town of Sevare was not immediately clear but an airport
technician at the scene said there were no casualties.
Ambodedjo Airport is the only terminal serving the regional capital of Mopti.
The city is home to the headquarters of the G5, an African military taskforce tasked with rooting out
jihadists in the West Africa Sahel region.
Six people were killed in Mopti city in June when Islamist militants raided the headquarters of the
G5, a sign emboldened jihadist movements are stretching further south.
“They fired on Sevare’s Ambodedjo Airport around midnight,” the governor of the Mopti region,
Gen. Sidi Toure, said.
The technician at the scene confirmed that shells were fired on the site.
Mali has been in turmoil since Tuareg rebels and loosely allied Islamists took over its north in 2012,
prompting French forces to intervene to push them back the following year.
Those groups have since regained a foothold and used the lawless area to launch attacks across West Africa.
Ethnic militia violence has added to the country’s woes, killing nearly 300 civilians this year,
the UN human rights office said on Friday.(Reuters/NAN)