Life in Timbuktu after the Islamist occupation
On 2 April 2012, Islamist militants overran the ancient desert city of Timbuktu, northern Mali, and installed a brutal and alien form of sharia law. A French intervention force has now removed them, but what is life like for the people who live there? This video series from
IRIN examines life from the perspective of a tour guide, soldiers, the Mayor, displaced people, humanitarians, a griotte and a human rights investigator
Back to Timbuktu? Mali's displaced people face uncertain return home a year on from crisis – video
Some of the nearly Mali's 300,000 displaced people have begun to return to Timbuktu more than a year after French troops helped liberate the city from radical Islamists. The question for many is not whether it is safe to return but whether there is anything to go back to
Postwar Mali: 'The social tissue is broken' – video
Though access to some areas in Mali has improved since the liberation of the north, the country continues to face serious challenges
Mali's griottes: 'We sing for peace; without peace, there can be no development' – video
Praise singers, poets, political advisers, historians – in Mali, as elsewhere in Africa, griottes play multiple roles
Training Mali's military: 'The enemy understands we are ready' – video
Though the Islamist militant forces that occupied Timbuktu have been driven out, the guerilla war continues
Timbuktu's twilight: 'There can be no development in Mali without power' – video
Hallé Ousmane, Timbuktu's mayor, presides over a city brought to its knees after a prolonged occupation by Islamist militants
Multiracial Mali: 'We are bound together by blood' – video
Human rights activists are finding the fallout of the Islamist occupation in Timbuktu hard to deal with, with a new fear among Mali's Arabs, Tuaregs and black people
Mali: 'We can forgive but justice must be done' – video
Malian teacher Ousmane Maiga is returning to Timbuktu, but he wants those who took up arms with Islamist rebels to be brought to justice
Islamist insurgency in Mali casts long shadow over Timbuktu
Mali: the tour guide of Timbuktu – video
