Attacks by suspected jihadists on an army base and a passenger boat on the Niger river in northernThe two separate attacks on Thursday targeted the Timbuktu boat on the river and an army position at Bamba, in the northern Gao region, with “a provisional toll of 49 civilians and 15 soldiers killed”, according to a government statement.
The Niger is a vital transport link in a region where road infrastructure is poor and railways absent. The impoverished state has been struggling with insecurity since 2012, when a revolt led by ethnic Tuaregs erupted in the troubled north. The insurgency was fanned by jihadists, who three years later took their own campaign into central Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, sending shockwaves across theIn northern Mali, the regional rebellion was formally ended by a peace agreement signed between the rebels and the Malian government in 2015.