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Truckers defy death to supply Mali with fuel
The Citizen
|November 05, 2025
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.
This story is from the November 05, 2025 edition of The Citizen.
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