from RUDD KONTE in Bamako, Mali
Mali Bureau
BAMAKO, (CAJ News) – SOME journalists have been killed and others kidnapped as the Sahel region of Africa emerged a hostile zone for radio media practitioners over the past year.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said these crimes illustrated the continued deterioration of safety conditions for journalists working in the region, the last media professionals still able to cover this area.
This notably applies to certain parts of Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad.
RSF already sounded the alarm in its recent report, “What it is like to be a journalist in the Sahel.”
The organisation reports that Chadian journalist, Idriss Yaya, of Mongo community radio was shot dead on March 1 in 2024, in the village of Djondjol.
He had frequently been attacked and threatened due to his coverage of local inter-community conflicts. His killers did not spare his wife and their son.
Malian journalist, Abdoul Aziz Djibrilla, of the Naata community radio station in Ansongo was shot dead by assailants on his way to a training session on November 7, 2023.
Journalists – Saleck Ag Jiddou and Moustapha Koné – from Radio Coton in Ansongo were kidnapped in the attack.
Their fellow journalists Hamadoun Nialibouly of radio Dande Douentza, based in central Mali, and Moussa M’bana Dicko of Dandé Haire, based in the north of the Mopti region, have been missing since September 2020 and April 2021, respectively.
This week, some 20 community radio station managers gathered in Malian capital Bamako to take part in the launch of an appeal to stop the violations.
Some 547 community radio stations signed the appeal.
Ousmane Touré, director of the community radio station Naata, noted community radio stations had played a key role in promoting press freedom in the Sahel since their creation in the 1990s.
“However, these local media outlets and their journalists are paying a heavy price as the region is gripped by instability, which is caused by armed gangs and the national authorities’ inability to guarantee their protection.”
RSF and the community radio stations are calling on the regional authorities and the international community to support and protect these outlets.
“The future of the right to information depends on it,” Touré said.
The Sahel is enduring Islamist insurgencies and some autocratic governments.
– CAJ News