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JIHADISTS aligned with the Islamic State group are advancing in north-eastern

Mali, prompting terrified citizens to flee their homes, sources there say.

The Islamic State in the Greater

Sahara (ISGS) launched an offensive in the strategic towns of Gao and Menaka regions in March, triggering heavy fighting with local armed groups and rival jihadists.

“If nothing is done, the whole region will be occupied” by jihadists, a human rights campaigner, contacted on Whatsapp, said on condition of anonymity.

Witnesses and other sources contacted confirmed that the ISGS’ sustained push in this remote and dangerous area, and rights campaigners say civilians have been massacred.

Gao and Menaka have long been in the forefront of Mali’s decade-long jihadist crisis.

Since 2012, thousands have died and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes, in an insurgency that has spread to neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso.

Despair at the toll prompted Malian army officers to mount a coup in 2020.

The junta has brought in Russian paramilitaries – a move that prompted France to pull out troops who had been battling jihadists for nine years. |