Leaders | Suffering in the Sahel

A coup in Mali is unlikely to make matters better

Western countries cannot solve African crises with military support alone

Aug 20th 2020

A COUP D’ETAT is almost never good news. In Mali the descent into violence accelerated dramatically in March 2012, when soldiers mutinied and launched attacks on the presidential palace, the state broadcaster and a military barracks in Bamako, the capital. The then president, Amadou Toumani Touré, was forced into exile. Within months, jihadists had taken over much of northern Mali. By the start of 2013 France felt obliged to intervene, sending soldiers and its air force to push the militants out of their strongholds in the cities of Timbuktu and Gao.

This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “Why the Sahel is suffering”