Timbuktu A Ghost Town As Residents Leave The War-Torn Region
Timbuktu, a town in the West African nation of Mali, 20 km north of the River Niger on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert has turned into a ghost town. According to officials, after radical Islamists left the area, “There is no water. The people have left and the Islamists too. It’s a ghost town.”
A French-led military campaign to oust the Islamist groups had led the rebels to flee. They are currently “regrouping in the region of Kidal”, in Mali’s far northeast, says Australia News. The Islamists kept the electricity and water running with generators but, eventually ran out, as their fuel stocks had been destroyed in French air raids.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, French planes on Sunday night bombed a major base of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) near Timbuktu, destroying a mansion belonging to Libya’s slain dictator Muammar Gaddafi which was being used by Islamist radicals as their headquarters.
Video via CNN: