After several hesitations, the interim authorities, supposed to bring back the authority of the Malian State in the north of the country, were finally installed, this Thursday April 20, in the Timbuktu and Taoudeni regions. This, after compromises with protest movements.
Uncertainty still hovered over the city yesterday with the announcement of a protest march. But in the end, it was in a full room of the Regional Council that the interim authorities of the two regions were installed. More than a month after Gao, Menaka and Kidal.
Boubacar Ould Hamadi and Hamoudi Ould Sidi Ahmed, installed in the presidencies of the interim authorities of Timbuktu and Taoudeni, have called for social cohesion and live together “without racial or ethnic considerations”.
This ceremony comes after arrangements were made with the Congress for Justice in Azawad (CJA), an armed movement in the region that was previously against the interim authorities without their involvement. These include a cantonment site, posts in the DDR (Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration), quotas in the ranks of the mixed patrols, and positions of advisers to the governors of the two regions.
An interim authority set up mainly against a backdrop of increasing security and educational challenges in the region. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Mali (OCHA), 59 schools remain closed in Timbuktu due to insecurity. Moreover, an unlimited strike of teachers has paralyzed since February the whole schools of the north of Mali.
Aboubacar Dicko