Drone attack near the Algerian border in North Mali, 21 civilians including 11 children killed

21 civilians, including 11 children, were killed in an airstrike on a village in northern Mali near the Algerian border on Sunday. The attack on Tinjauaatine village is the largest number of civilians killed by drones since the breakdown of the peace agreement between the country's ruling military junta and armed pro-independence groups in Mali last year.

The Strategic Framework for Defending the People of Azawad is a coalition of Tuareg-majority groups fighting for the independence of northern Mali, which they call Azawad. The coalition said in a statement that the attacks targeted a pharmacy on Sunday. Other attacks have since targeted people.

A statement by Mohamed Elmouloud Ramadan, a spokesman for the rebel coalition present in the village, said that these criminal attacks temporarily killed 21 civilians, including 11 children and a pharmacy manager, injured dozens, and caused heavy material damage. Mali's armed forces confirmed the attacks in a statement broadcast on national television.

The statement said that the General Staff of the Armed Forces confirmed airstrikes in the Tinzaouatene sector on Sunday morning. These precision strikes targeted terrorists. These attacks come a few weeks after the Malian army and mercenaries of the Russia-based Wagner Group were defeated by Tuareg rebels and fighters of the al-Qaeda-linked group Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimeen.

The coalition said in a statement that the strikes targeted a pharmacy on Sunday, followed by other attacks that targeted people gathered around the initial damage. Russian mercenaries as well as the Malian army do not have a strong presence on the ground in the Kidal region, so the use of air assets, including drones, is the only way to fight against armed groups in the area.

The Policy Center for the New South, a Moroccan think tank, therefore expects an increase in air strikes, including on civilians, as a reprisal after recent major setbacks to Wagner mercenaries in northern Mali.