Reactions continue to pour in after the terrorist attack on Friday, March 4 on the Mondoro military camp in central Mali.
The scale of the carnage among Malian soldiers prompted Colonel Assimi Goita, the President of the Transition, to declare a three-day national mourning period. Nearly 30 of his brothers-in-arms lost their lives against 70 terrorists in this village in the central Mopti region, according to a provisional assessment by the Malian army.
“The grieving nation continues to mourn its dead,” Maliweb reported, while Sahel Tribune noted that the soldiers were caught short this time despite their surge of power over the jihadists. In doing so, the losses suffered by the army in Mondoro constitute “the heaviest death toll since the beginning of the New Year.”
“I learned with great dismay of the terrorist attack in Mondoro, Mali, against the Malian Armed Forces. I strongly condemn this heinous crime and send my condolences to the Transitional authorities, the Malian people and the families of the victims,” the Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, said on Twitter.
On Monday, the last day of national mourning, flags were flown at half-mast on public buildings. An outpouring of solidarity was created around the FAmas (Malian armed forces) who lost soldiers. Yesterday, People from Mondoro living in Bamako organized a meeting during which they showed their support.
Jihadists’ frantic retreat
“We support the army day and night. The army is us. Where I am talking to you, the people are worried. And we are truly sorry. It is a pity because the authorities could not respond in time. We wish they could have made a counter-attack before we were attacked,” says Soumaila Morba, a member of the organization, while one of his comrades is worried about a possible humanitarian crisis in his village.
“One of the main recommendations of the terrorists is to demand that the populations disassociate themselves from the army in place in Mondoro. And our meeting today was to block this request by the armed groups,” said Oumar Ongoiba, secretary general of the association, pointing out that his home village is cut off from the world.
He hopes that the military action will be accompanied by the return of the telephone network and development actions. “It’s a race against time and by the wet season, we hope that the situation will be resolved in Mondoro so that people can cultivate, so that people can raise livestock, so that people can feed their animals,” he says.
Despite these fears, the Malian army, in a new statement issued Sunday evening, said that “the situation is under control in the Mondoro area.z A group of 16 soldiers who continued fighting in the northeastern sector of Mondoro have been recovered and have confirmed the extent of the damage suffered by the armed terrorist groups,” according to the FAmas.
ODL/cgd/fss/abj/APA