KIDIRA: Amath Mboup, a young Senegalese, is haunted by the charred and decomposing bodies of fellow truckers killed by jihadists lying along the highway to the Malian city of Kayes.
Since September, fighters from the Al-Qaeda-linked Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims, known by its Arabic acronym JNIM, have sought to cripple landlocked Mali’s economy and undermine its junta.
They have been blocking and sometimes attacking fuel tankers entering Mali and placing total blockades on certain strategic routes leading to the capital Bamako.
Hundreds of tankers from Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s economic capital, and the Senegalese capital Dakar have been set ablaze.
Dozens of drivers have been killed or kidnapped, particularly on the Kayes-Bamako road in the west of the country, near the border with Senegal.
