Armed men in Mali publicly killed a TikTok influencer, authorities say

Armed men in Mali killed a TikTok influencer who had posted videos in support of the West African nation’s military, authorities said Monday.

Mariame Cissé was abducted on Friday from a weekly market in Echel, according to Yehia Tandina, the mayor of Timbuktu.

“The following day, at dusk, the same men brought her back to Independence Square in Tonka and executed her in front of a crowd,” Tandina told The Associated Press.

The mayor of Tonka in the Timbuktu region, Mamadou Konipo, confirmed the killing but said he didn’t have more information.

Tonka is a village along the Niger River, roughly 150 kilometres from Timbuktu. Members of the al-Qaeda affiliate Jama’at Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM), are known to operate there.

No group has taken responsibility for the killing.

Cissé, who was not a member of the military, sometimes posted images of herself in military fatigues to her more than 140,00 followers, which is thought to have drawn attention from the armed men.

According to Tandina, Cissé received death threats several days before she was abducted.

The story was confirmed to Reuters by two local sources who asked not to be named because of fears for their safety. Neither witnessed the execution themselves, but one said they had heard the details from someone in the crowd, the other from Cissé’s family.

“Mariam was forcibly taken from the market in front of everyone,” one source said.

Cisse ‘wanted to promote her community’

In one video on her TikTok feed, Cissé posted a clip of herself wearing military fatigues with the caption “Vive Mali.”

“This young woman simply wanted to promote her community through her TikTok posts and encourage the Malian army in its missions to protect people and their property,” the state TV report said, without naming the abductors.

Mali has been battling armed groups since 2012, a fight that has escalated over the past decade. The military seized power in 2020 on the pretext of curtailing the insecurity. Another officer seized power in a coup the following year. Insecurity has worsened since then, according to monitoring groups.

Armed groups, primarily JNIM, operate in large swathes of rural regions. The landlocked nation is currently under a fuel blockade by JNIM.