When Mali's historic city was taken by rebels, thousands of priceless ancient manuscripts came under threat. We report on a dangerous operation to smuggle the archive to safety At 5am on a Sunday morning, Mohamed Diagayeté was disturbed by an urgent banging on the door of his house in Timbuktu, on the southern edge of the Sahara desert. It was a friend from the army: a heavily armed group...
Hailing from a musical dynasty that stretches back 77 generations, Toumani Diabaté's exquisite kora playing has gone global. Now he is joined on a new album by his son Sidiki Take the bone-dry shell of a large gourd, a straight length of rosewood and a piece of cow or antelope hide, combine them with 200 years of craftsmanship and 21 strings, and you have the kora: subSaharan Africa's most sophisticated...
Purchase of Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta's private plane may be a tipping point in Mali's relations with aid donors Controversy about the purchase of a presidential jet and recriminations over transparency overshadowed a meeting in Bamako on Thursday between the Malian government and international aid donors. The conference was called a year to the day after a massive $4.1bn (£2.4bn) was pledged to...
Schoolgirls from Jakarta to Timbuktu describe what education means to them and their outrage at the Boko Haram abduction The first time I heard about the kidnappings of schoolgirls in Nigeria was on Twitter, when the headline came up in my feed. I told my best friend about it and she was pretty surprised because she didn't know about it yet. Continue reading... ...
Virus has claimed 84 lives and jumped borders to Sierra Leone and Liberia, raising concerns that it could sweep across region Late last month, villagers in Guinea's remote south-eastern region of Nzérékoré were greeted by a sight so alarming that many barricaded themselves indoors. A group of doctors dressed in protective suits and helmets were visiting the centre of an Ebola epidemic...
With the contemporary art scene on the continent flourishing, The Culture Trip suggests some of the people worth watching Exiled from Zimbabwe after producing an unflattering portrait of the countrys president, Robert Mugabe, Kudzanai Chiurai , the first black artist to get a BA in fine arts at the University of Pretoria, has become an important figure in African art. Chiurai uses dramatic multimedia...
Some of the nearly Mali's 300,000 displaced people have begun to return to Timbuktu more than a year after French troops helped liberate the city from radical Islamists. The question for many is not whether it is safe to return but whether there is anything to go back to Henrietta Williams Hugo Williams ...
Growing concern as Islamist groups targeted by Operation Serval appear to be regaining footholds despite 6,000 UN troops A year after France mounted Operation Serval to rid northern Mali of jihadists, they seem to be back. According to local sources but also the security forces, jihadists have regained a foothold in several areas. Islamists have pressured families hostile to their presence to leave...
Children in Timbuktu are returning to their classrooms almost a year since the ancient desert city was seized by Islamist militants Hugo Williams Henrietta Williams ...
Large amounts of weapons and ammunition seized during operation in northern region of Timbuktu French forces killed at least 11 suspected Islamist fighters and seized large amounts of weapons and ammunition during an operation in Mali's northern region of Timbuktu, a French army source in Mali has said. "The operation was carried out on Wednesday night around 100km north of Timbuktu," the source said....
being butchered like sheep' • Deployment of French troops failing to quell sectarian clashes Muslims in Central African Republic (CAR) are being "butchered like sheep'' by Christian militias, and the deployment of French troops has not improved their safety, according to witness accounts from refugees arriving on evacuation flights to Mali. On Thursday, a UN official identified "the seeds of a genocide"...
The Mali duo play in total darkness in a show which is part avant garde theatre piece, part beginner's guide to their career, writes Alex Needham Alex Needham ...
s displaced, fleeing south to Mopti and finally Bamako. Others who fled from the north have similar stories. Halima Haidara, from Gao, becomes visibly upset as she relates the trauma of the MNLA's takeover of the town. "I have three younger sisters and when the rebels arrived they violated them," she says. "Then they caught four of my uncles and slaughtered them and their families, so I disappeared."...
s hazardous roads Like most motorcyclists in Bamako, Drissa Konaté does not wear a helmet. "It is complicated because I have dreadlocks," the 32-year-old Rastafarian explains. But no one in Mali's style-conscious capital has ever expected him to wear one. Despite his aversion to helmets, Konaté, a caricaturist, is well aware of the risks of using his motorbike in the city, and he's doing what he can...
s peace and security council, the continental equivalent of the UN security council. The aim was to produce a rapidly deployable force and that by 2012 two units, each 2,500 strong, could be operational within just 14 days. This was highly ambitious but badly needed. When, in 2002, the AU replaced the OAU, its badly discredited predecessor, it was specifically mandated to prevent a repetition of the...
s a reminder that we should chip in to save other world heritage sites threatened by conflict Congratulations to Jeffrey Gonano, who has won a Picasso valued at €1m for the cost of a €100 raffle ticket . But while the inclusion of a work by the the modern world's greatest artist has drawn attention to a charity auction in aid of the ancient city of Tyre in southern Lebanon, the publicity has not led...
s rise . More Africans were seduced by them in 2013 than ever before. But the mall was also then the logical target for terrorists seeking maximum impact on their perceived enemies and the world beyond. In September al-Shabaab , an Islamist militant group from Somalia, brought mayhem to the upmarket Westgate shopping centre – one of the temples of Africa's 21st-century consumer capitalism – in neighbouring...
s five deadliest countries for the media. They were joined by India and the Philippines, which replaced Mexico and Brazil, although the number of journalists killed in Brazil, five, was the same as last year. Almost 40% of the deaths occurred in conflicts zones, defined as Syria, Somalia, Mali, the Indian province of Chhattisgarh, the Pakistani province of Balochistan and the Russian republic of Dagestan....
s latest album was recorded in Mali and includes the 'desert R&B' of Songhoy Blues – a band determined keep the country's music alive in the face of pressure from Islamists • Damon Albarn and Africa Express in Mali • A week in Mali with Africa Express Garba Touré and his guitar were a familiar sight on the streets of Diré, a dusty town on the banks on the Niger, upstream from Timbuktu. But when armed...
French forces capture man wanted in US for 2000 shooting of American diplomat and sentenced to 20 years for other killings A member of an extremist group wanted in the fatal carjacking of an American official in Niger more than a decade ago has been arrested by French soldiers in northern Mali, prosecutors said. The suspect, known as Cheibani Ould Hama, was due to be transferred to the capital, Bamako,...