Newsademic British English edition 260

part o f the monument. □
B
a m a k o
 
attack
On 20th November several armed 
men ran into a large hotel in Bam ­
ako, the capital city o f Mali. They 
fired their weapons and took over 
100 people as hostages. Specially 
trained Malian troops then sur­
rounded the hotel. After entering the 
building, they shot and killed two 
armed men. Some French and Amer­
ican soldiers who were in Bamako

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26th November 2015 
N e w s a d e m ic .co m ™
 - British English edition 
page 
16
at the time helped the Malian troops. 
Twenty people staying or working at 
the hotel died in the attack.
Trouble in Mali began in 2012. 
Then, a small group o f army offic­
ers forced M ali’s president to leave 
the country. They took control of 
Bamako. For several years the M a­
lian army had been fighting against 
Tuareg rebels in the north o f the 
country. The Tuareg is a nomadic 
tribe. Its members mainly live in 
northern Mali and in parts o f N i­
ger, Algeria, and Libya. The Tuareg 
rebels wanted the northern part o f 
Mali, which they call Azawad, to be 
a separate country.
The Tuareg took advantage o f 
what the army officers were doing in 
Bamako. It managed to force all the 
Malian soldiers to leave the northern 
part o f the country. Several militant 
Islamic groups assisted them.
Mali is a member o f a group 
called ECOWAS (the Economic 
Community o f West African States). 
This organisation has 15 member 
countries. Leaders o f ECOWAS 
became alarmed at what was hap­
pening in Mali. They feared that 
the militant Islamic groups might 
take over the whole o f Mali. If that 
happened, similar problems might 
spread to their own countries.
At first ECOWAS insisted that 
the army officers hand power back 
to a new president. After this was
done, ECOWAS began discussing 
ways o f defeating the Islamic m ili­
tants. Yet, then, to many people’s 
surprise, the militants attacked a 
town near Bamako. M ali’s president 
asked F r a n c is Hollande, the presi­
dent o f France, for help.
Like many other countries in 
North and West Africa, Mali used to 
be a colony o f France. These coun­
tries became independent nations 
in the early 1960s. Yet France has 
continued to keep military bases in 
some o f them. M r Hollande imme­
diately sent several thousand spe­
cially trained French troops to Mali. 
M ost were based in Chad, another 
North African country.
Working with soldiers from the 
Malian army, the French forces soon 
defeated the Islamic militant groups. 
Several ECOWAS countries also 
sent troops to help. However, many 
militants escaped to the huge areas 
o f remote desert in the north of Mali.
The United Nations (UN) helped 
to organise new elections. It also 
sent a large peacekeeping force to 
Mali. This force then took over from 
the French and ECOWAS troops. 
Ibrahim Boubacar Keita won the 
presidential election.
Many foreign business people use 
the Bamako hotel that was attacked. 
Those who died in the hotel included 
six Russians and three people from 
China. This was the second deadly at­
tack in the capital city. Eight months 
ago, gunmen killed five people in 
one o f the Bam ako’s most popular 
restaurants. People from France and 
Belgium died in this incident.
M ali’s president insisted that all 
the Islamic militant groups in Mali 
would be defeated. Several o f these 
groups are known to be operating 
in the country. It is not known 
which one planned the attack on 
the hotel. □
A