Politics Dozens of soldiers and Russian mercenaries killed in Mali
Russian Wagner mercenaries in Mali have suffered one of their heaviest losses to date in West Africa, with several dozen fighters killed and captured. Rebels of the separatist Tuareg people in the north of the Sahel state reportedly killed several dozen Malian soldiers and Russian mercenaries during three days of fighting as they attempted to capture the village of Tinzaouatène on the border with Algeria. Russian mercenaries have been fighting with the Malian army against all rebel movements in the country since 2021, including Islamist terrorist militias as well as the Tuareg.
28.07.2024, 17:41
SDA
Russian channels close to the mercenaries, including a former commander of the forces in northern Mali, spoke of more than 80 killed and 15 captured fighters from their side. Among them is said to be the Wagner commander Anton Yelizarov, who was jointly responsible for the conquest of the Ukrainian city of Soledar during the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.
The Tuareg rebel group Permanent Strategic Order for the Defense of the People of Azawad (CSP-DPA) announced that seven of its fighters had been killed and twelve injured. The survivors on the government side were being pursued on their retreat to the city of Kidal, hundreds of kilometers away. Mali's army announced that its units had withdrawn, but that the fight would continue. Five terrorist targets had been successfully shot at from the air.
In 2012, the Tuareg started a rebellion in northern Mali for their independence in the area they call Azawad in the Sahara and temporarily made a pact with Islamist terrorist groups, which have since spread throughout the region. The Tuareg uprising ended in 2015 with a peace agreement that granted the desert people more rights. However, Mali's military government officially terminated the agreement at the beginning of the year after the Tuareg also accused the junta of not adhering to it. Shortly before this, the army had achieved an important victory with the help of Russian mercenaries by recapturing the desert town of Kidal from the autonomous semi-nomads.
