Bamako: At least 18 people have been killed in an airstrike in northern Mali, a separatist group said. The army said it had mounted an attack targeting armed militants.
The Collective for the Defence of the Rights of the Azawad People, which is part of a Tuareg separatist coalition, said Monday the Malian army bombed a market 50 km north of Lerneb, in the Timbuktu region.
Seven people were also injured in the strike on Sunday, the group said in a statement, denouncing a “barbaric act from another age” and a “flagrant human rights violation.”
Mali’s army said Monday in a statement on X it carried out air strikes on a “refuge” in the same area cited by the separatist group, killing 11 “terrorists.”
Mali, along with its neighbours Burkina Faso and Niger, has for more than a decade battled an insurgency fought by armed groups, including some allied with al-Qaida and the Islamic State group.