French, Malian troops patrol Timbuktu
2013-01-29 11:42
Timbuktu - French and Malian forces were patrolling Mali's
fabled desert city of Timbuktu on Tuesday, after a hero's welcome following
their lightning advance north.
But the city's mayor denounced what he called a crime
against culture as fleeing Islamists torched a building housing priceless
ancient manuscripts.
Financial aid meanwhile was beginning to flow into the
troubled region.
On Tuesday, Japan announced it would give an extra $120
million to help stabilise Africa's Sahel region, days after 10 Japanese
nationals were killed in the Algerian hostage siege.
The announcement came just hours before a donor conference
for the Mali mission was due to get underway in Ethiopia.
Already on Monday the International Monetary Fund agreed to
provide an $18.4m emergency loan to Mali.
With the recapture of Timbuktu, only one Islamist stronghold
remains to be retaken: the town of Kidal in the desert hills of the far north,
1 500km northeast of the capital Bamako.
Asked if French troops would press on to try to force the
Islamists out of the mountainous north of the country, French President
Francois Hollande said: "Now the Africans can take over...
"We know that this is the most difficult part because
the terrorists are hidden there and can still carry out extremely dangerous
operations, for neighbouring countries and Mali," he said from Paris.
Residents of the ancient city on the edge of the Sahara
desert erupted in joy as French and Malian troops drove in on Monday.
"Mali, Mali, Mali," they shouted, as they waved French and Malian
flags.
"There were no shots fired, no blood spilt. Not even
passive resistance with traps," Colonel Frederic Gout, head of French
helicopter operations at the city, told AFP.
Residents said many of the Islamist occupiers had left
several days ago, as French air strikes rained down on their bases across the
north. The electricity and the phone networks were both out of action.
'A cultural crime'
As the Franco-Malian force approached the city however,
reports emerged that a building housing tens of thousands of manuscripts from
the ancient Muslim world and Greece had been set on fire.
Timbuktu mayor Halley Ousmane, speaking from the capital
Bamako, confirmed accounts of the fire at the Ahmed Baba Centre for
Documentation and Research.
"It's a real cultural crime," he said.
Set up in 1973, the centre housed between 60 000 and 100 000
manuscripts, according to Mali's culture ministry.
Timbuktu was for centuries a cosmopolitan city and a centre
of Islamic learning.
Radical Islamists seized it in April 2012 as they took
control of Mali's desert north in the chaos that followed a military coup last
March.
They forced women in Timbuktu to wear veils, and those
judged to have violated their strict version of Islamic law were whipped and
stoned. The militants also destroyed ancient Muslim shrines they considered
idolatrous.
On Monday however, residents of the city were celebrating
their new-found freedom.
Lahlia Garba, a woman in her fifties, expressed her relief
that the hard-line Islamists had been forced out.
Regional intervention
"I had to wear a burqa, gloves and cover
everything," she said.
Hama Cisse, another Timbuktu resident, exclaimed: "We
are independent again! We were held hostage for 10 months but it seemed like 10
years."
The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor Fatou
Bensouda warned Mali over reports its army had committed abuses.
Rights groups and journalists have reported allegations that
Malian troops have executed suspects on the spot in towns recaptured during the
offensive.
"All those alleged to be responsible for serious crimes
in Mali must be held accountable," he said.
Monday's advance into Timbuktu, 1 000km north of
Bamako, came 18 days after the French launched their offensive to wrest the vast
desert north from the Islamists with the support of Malian troops.
France now has 2 900 soldiers in Mali.
At least 8 000 African troops from Chad and the west African
bloc Ecowas are expected to take over from them, but their deployment has been
slow, with 2 700 split between Mali and Niger.
The African-led force will require a budget of $460m, the
African Union said on the final day of its summit in Addis Ababa on Monday,
promising to contribute $50m for the mission.
A spokesperson for British Prime Minister David Cameron said
London was keen to contribute more than the two transport planes and a
surveillance aircraft it has already provided.
British media reports on Tuesday suggested up to 200 troops
might be involved: around 40 in Mali as part of an EU mission to train Malian
soldiers, the rest training a regional intervention force in neighbouring
countries.
- SAPA
