Armed individuals in Mali have fatally shot a TikTok influencer who had been sharing supportive content about the country’s military, as authorities disclosed on Monday. Mariame Cissé was taken from a market in Echel last Friday and later brought back to Independence Square in Tonka, where she was executed in front of a gathering, as reported by Yehia Tandina, the mayor of Timbuktu.
Mamadou Konipo, the mayor of Tonka in the Timbuktu region, acknowledged the incident but mentioned a lack of further details. Tonka, situated about 150 kilometers from Timbuktu along the Niger River, is known to have a presence of the al-Qaeda affiliate Jama’at Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM).
The perpetrators of the killing remain unidentified, and no group has claimed responsibility for the act. Despite not being affiliated with the military, Cissé occasionally shared images of herself in military attire with her substantial following of over 140,000, which may have attracted the attention of the assailants.
According to Tandina, Cissé had received death threats in the days leading up to her abduction. Local sources, speaking on condition of anonymity due to safety concerns, corroborated the story to Reuters. While neither source witnessed the execution, one source stated that they learned about the incident from someone in the crowd, while the other heard about it from Cissé’s family.
In a video on her TikTok account, Cissé was seen donning military clothing with the caption “Vive Mali,” expressing her support for the nation. The state TV report highlighted that Cissé aimed to promote her community through her TikTok content and boost the morale of the Malian army, without naming the perpetrators.
Mali has been grappling with armed insurgencies since 2012, with the situation intensifying in recent years. The military took control in 2020 to address the escalating insecurity, followed by another coup in the subsequent year, leading to a further deterioration in security conditions, as per reports from monitoring organizations.
Predominantly, armed groups like JNIM operate across vast rural territories in Mali, with the country currently facing a fuel blockade imposed by JNIM.
The original source of this news article can be accessed [here](https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/mali-influencer-killed-9.6974441).