Truckers defy death to supply jihadist-hit Mali with fuel

TANKER driver Baba steeled himself for yet another perilous journey from Ivory Coast to Mali loaded up with desperately needed fuel - and fear.

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“You never know if you'll come back alive,” he said.

Even before they hit the road, the mere mention of a four-letter acronym is enough to scare Baba and his fellow drivers.

JNIM, the Al-Qaeda-linked Group to Support Islam and Muslims, known by its Arabic acronym, declared two months ago that no tanker would cross into Mali from any neighbouring country.

Hundreds of trucks carrying goods from the Ivorian economic hub Abidjan or the Senegalese capital Dakar have since been set on fire.

The JNIM’s strategy of economic jihad aims to choke off Mali’s capital Bamako and the ruling military junta, which seized power in back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021.

The fuel blockade has made everyday life in the west African country all but impossible.

“By economically strangling the country, the JNIM is looking to win popular support by accusing the military government of incompetence,” Bakary Sambe from the Dakar-based Timbuktu Institute think tank said.

On top of that, Mali has a “structural problem of insecurity”, he added.