Reports reaching APA from the Malian capital Bamako Tuesday suggest that no fewer than 15 people were wounded during Monday’s demonstrations in northeastern Gao by rebels of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA). The MNLA is one of the armed groups occupying the north of Mali.
“Some of the wounded are receiving treatment at home, fearing to go to hospital where they could be killed”, a resident of Gao told APA in a telephone interview, adding that the death toll from the clashes is expected to rise in the coming days.
Hundreds of people, most of them youths, took to the streets in Gao on Monday to protest the overnight assassination of Ibrahima Oumarou, a teacher-cum-town councilor. Oumarou who was an activist of the political mainstream in parliament, the Alliance for Democracy in Mali (Adema), was shot dead ostensibly by rebels. He was rushed to hospital by members of the Islamist Movement for Uniqueness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) in an attempt to rescue him.
After his burial, angry youths took to the streets, erecting barriers, burning tyres and chanting anti-MNLA slogans. According to an eyewitness, clashes broke out when the youths headed for the MNLA headquarters to express their discontent over Oumarou’s killing. In mid-May, unarmed youths in Gao defied MNLA militias during a demonstration against “several human rights abuses” targeting unarmed civilians.
Also known as the city of Askias, Gao is the main city in Mali’s three northern regions which fell in the hands of the insurgents among them the MNLA which unsuccessfully attempted to broker a deal for an alliance with the Islamists.
