Drone attack in northern Mali kills at least 8, Tuareg rebels say

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(Reuters) – At least eight people including children were killed and 20 injured in a drone strike at a fair in Mali’s northern Timbuktu region, Tuareg rebels said on Tuesday.

The rebel coalition known as the Permanent Strategic Framework for the Defence of the People of Azawad (CSP-DPA) said in a statement on Monday that a Turkish drone had carried out several strikes on a local market and civilian dwellings.

The CSP-DPA blamed Mali’s army and its allies for the attack.

Mali’s armed forces did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the incident.

The Tuareg are an ethnic group that inhabits the Sahara region, including parts of northern Mali, and is fighting for an independent homeland.

The separatist group launched an insurgency against Mali’s junta government in 2012 but the rebellion was later hijacked by Islamist groups.

They signed a peace agreement with Bamako in 2015, but CSP-DPA pulled out of the talks at the end of 2022.

In late July, the rebels attacked a convoy of Malian soldiers and mercenaries of Russia’s Wagner Group in the far north of the Sahel country, claiming to have killed 84 Russians and 47 Malian soldiers.

(Reporting by Portia Crowe; Additional reporting by Fadimata Kontao and Tiemoko Diallo; Writing by Anait Miridzhanian; Editing by Sandra Maler)