TENGRELA: Tanker driver Baba steeled himself for yet another perilous journey from Ivory Coast to Mali loaded up with desperately needed fuel — and fear.
“You never know if you’ll come back alive,” he said.
Even before they hit the road, the mere mention of a four-letter acronym is enough to scare Baba and his fellow drivers.
JNIM, the Al-Qaeda-linked Group to Support Islam and Muslims, known by its Arabic acronym, declared two months ago that no tanker would cross into Mali from any neighboring country.
Hundreds of trucks carrying goods from the Ivorian economic hub Abidjan or the Senegalese capital Dakar have since been set on fire.
