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Malians took to the streets by the thousands on Friday, AFP correspondents saw, after the military junta called for protests against stringent sanctions imposed by the West Africa bloc ECOWAS over delayed elections.
In the capital Bamako, thousands of people wearing the national colours of red, yellow and green gathered in a central square for a rally staged by the military government.
A large crowd also gathered in the northern city of Timbuktu, AFP correspondents reported. Social media also showed mass demonstrations in the towns of Kadiolo and Bougouni in the south.
Leaders from the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) agreed to sanction Mali last week, imposing a trade embargo and shutting borders, in a decision later backed by France, the United States and the European Union.
The move followed a proposal by Mali’s junta to stay in power for up to five years before staging elections – despite international demands that it respect a promise to hold the vote in February.
The junta cast the sanctions as “extreme” and “inhumane” and called for demonstrations.
Colonel Assimi Goita, who first took power in a coup in August 2020, has also urged Malians to “defend our homeland”.
On Friday, his office said the interim government had developed a “response plan” to the potentially crippling sanctions, without specifying details.
It added that the government remained open to dialogue with regional institutions and did not intend to engage in “arm-wrestling”.
As well as closing borders and imposing a trade embargo, ECOWAS leaders also halted financial aid to Mali and froze the country’s assets at the Central Bank of West African States.
The sanctions threaten to damage an already vulnerable economy in landlocked Mali, one of the world’s poorest countries.
A brutal jihadist insurgency has also raged in…
Source : france24
