Armed men suspected of being of terrorist intent attacked an army position early on Tuesday April 25th in Aka, a town located less than 5km from Youwarou on the other side of the river, in the center of Mali.
From security sources, movements of armed men were reported the day before and a warning given in several localities of the center. Concerns finally confirmed early On Tuesday, at about 4 am, when several armed men suspected of terrorism attacked the gendarmerie station in Aka, a circle in Youwarou where the Malian armed forces were so weakly present.
‘The shootings lasted about half an hour before the jihadists decided to flee. We were really scared.” say local sources contacted by Sahelien.com. The same sources add that “unfortunately a civilian was hit with a stray bullet “. In Bamako, a military official confirmed the attack adding that the victim is a child of about eleven years old.
This umpteenth attack against the positions of the army occurs one week after another against the Malian special forces in Gourma-Rahrous, in the Timbuktu region. A deadly attack that left several dead in the ranks of the terrorists and five on the side of the army that had succeeded in repelling the assailants. Prior to the intervention of Operation Barkhane aviation, which announced that it had killed ten other terrorists in raids.
In northern and central Mali, insecurity has been recurrent since the major northern cities were taken in 2012 by terrorist groups. The peace agreement signed after the French intervention in 2013 to help the army to hunt down terrorists struggles to be applied by Bamako as radical armed groups multiply on the ground.
Aboubacar Dicko