An Cosantóir Dec 2016 / Jan 2017 www.dfmagazine.ie
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EU SUPPort
By SGT WAYNE FITzGERALD
PhotoS CPL NEVILLE COUGHLAN
T
he Republic of Mali is a landlocked West African country
of 17.4 million people, with an area of just over 1,240,000
sq kms, bordered by Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire,
Guinea, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal. It consists of eight
regions and its northern borders reach deep into the Sahara
Desert. Its capital, Bamako, has a population of 1.8 million, and
in 2006 was estimated to be the fastest growing city in Africa.
Mali's most famous city is Timbuktu, a remote city on the edge
of the Sahara Desert in central Mali. It is now a dilapidated ruin
after a nine-month jihadist occupation between April 2012 and
January 2013.
In 1960 the Sudanese Republic and Senegal gained independence
from France as the Mali Federation. Senegal withdrew after a few
months and the Sudanese Republic renamed itself the Republic of Mali.
In 1968, General Moussa Traore became the country's dicta-
tor after seizing power in a coup. Traore's reign came to an end
in 1991 after another military coup, which returned democratic
rule to the country. President Alpha Konare won Mali's first two
democratic presidential elections in 1992 and 1997 before step-
ping down in 2002 due to Mali's two-term constitutional limit. He
was succeeded by Amadou Toumani Toure, who had led the 1991
coup to end Traore's dictatorship. President Toure won a second
term in office in 2007.
Then, in 2011, a significant number of traditionally nomadic Tu-
areg tribesmen returned to Mali after having fought in the Libyan
Civil War. These heavily armed fighters formed the National
Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and rebelled
against the government in January 2012 with the goal of attaining
for MaLi
Sgt Shane Whelan
