A mass grave has been found in central Mali, amid a deteriorating security situation marked by bombings and abductions by armed groups, and unlawful killings by the military, according to Amnesty International.



The six bodies found in the grave were of people arrested several days earlier by the military, residents of the village of Dogo told the human rights group. Searching for the missing group, villagers said they discovered thee bodies buried and blindfolded.



Sixty-five people have died in bombings since the beginning of the year and the increasing number of attacks by armed groups, including Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin’ (JNIM), have left over 200,000 children out of education as schools have closed.

The current period of violence in Mali has emerged partly as a result of the downfall of Muammar Gaddafi in neighbouring Libya in 2011. Seasoned Tuareg fighters returned to Mali, along with seized Libyan arms and equipment. The Tuareg uprising in 2012 was then used by extremists as an opportunity to take over towns and impose sharia law.



Although the Malian military, backed by France, routed jihadists from towns in 2013, the state still has no control over parts of central and northern Mali.



A presidential election is planned for July, though it is unclear how the government expects to organise this amid the growing insecurity.



Hopes are high for the new military force, the G5 Sahel, a joint effort involving troops from Mali, Niger, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Chad which is funded mostly by Saudi Arabia and the European Union.



But those countries are each grappling with problems that will make building an effective regional force challenging, especially when the area it covers is enormous and lacks infrastructure. Operation Barkhane, a regional counter-terrorism force made up of several thousand well-trained French troops based in the Sahel, has struggled. Meanwhile, the region’s UN peacekeeping mission, known as the world’s most dangerous, is limited in terms of the terrain it can control.



In Timbuktu, peacekeepers patrol the streets, maintaining enough calm that occasional concerts can be staged – as long as they finish in time for the evening curfew. But outside the city, armed groups come and go as they please.

On Wednesday, a man suspected of war crimes in Timbuktu is scheduled to appear before the international criminal court at The Hague, after Malian authorities surrendered him at the weekend.



Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud was allegedly the Islamic police chief of the JNIM’s predecessor Ansar Dine when the jihadist group occupied the ancient Malian city in 2012.

Al Hassan is accused of destroying Timbuktu’s ancient mausoleums, but also of torture and sexual slavery. It is unclear why he could not have been tried in Mali.

The 2016 conviction of Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi for destroying cultural heritage was hailed as historic and precedent-setting, but the ICC was also criticised for focusing on him, rather than jihadists who had meted out cruel punishments.