Mali soldiers detain senior officers in apparent mutiny

Malian soldiers in the garrison town of Kati on Tuesday began arresting senior military officers in an apparent mutiny that came after more than two months of demonstrations calling for the president's resignation.

It was not clear who was behind the latest unrest in Mali, but the developments prompted government workers in the capital, Bamako, about 15 kilometres south of Kati, to flee.

"Arrests are being made of officials. It's total confusion," said an officer at Mali's Ministry of Internal Security.

Witnesses said tanks and military vehicles were on the streets of Kati. The French embassy in Bamako tweeted that residents of Kati and Bamako should stay indoors.

The developments on Tuesday bore a resemblance to the events leading up to the 2012 military coup, which led to years of chaos in Mali.

'Bandits' kill 23 Nigerian troops in country's north-west

Twenty killed in attacks on villages in western Niger

On March 21, 2012, a mutiny began at the Kati military camp as soldiers began rioting and then broke into the camp's armoury. After taking weapons, they headed for the seat of government, led by Amadou Haya Sanogo, who held the rank of captain at the time.

Mr Sanogo was later forced to hand over power to a civilian transitional government that organised elections. The man who won that 2013 vote, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, is now facing mounting pressure to step down as his unpopularity grows.

Regional mediators urged him to share power in a unity government but those overtures were swiftly rejected by opposition leaders, who said they would not stop short of Mr Keita's removal.

His government has been criticised for how it is handling the militant insurgency engulfing the country, which was once praised as a model of democracy in the region.

The military faced a wave of deadly attacks in the north last year, prompting the government to close its most vulnerable outposts to stem the losses.

THE SPECS

Engine: six-litre W12 twin-turbo

Transmission: eight-speed dual clutch auto

Power: 626bhp

Torque: 900Nm

Price: Dh940,160 (plus VAT)

On sale: Q1 2020

Conflict, drought, famine

Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.

Band Aid

Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.