A TikTok star accused of helping Mali’s army has been executed by Al-Qaeda-linked jihadists.
Mariam Cisse was shot dead in the street by suspected members of the notorious Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) on November 7.
Her death has shocked the West African country, which is ruled by a military junta that is struggling to contain the jihadist insurgency that has gripped it since 2012.
Ms Cisse, believed to be in her 20s, posted TikTok videos about the city of Tonka in the northern Timbuktu region to her 90,000 followers.
She often also expressed support for Mali’s army.
Ms Cisse, who was known for publicly supporting the army by wearing their uniforms in her TikTok videos, was reportedly taken out of the city from a local fair by armed men while filming a livestream.
The following day she was taken to Tonka on a motorbike and shot dead in Independence Square.
Her brother told AFP that ‘my sister was arrested on Thursday [November 6] by the jihadists’, adding that they accused her of ‘informing the Malian army of their movements’.
Mali is one of a series of African countries descending into chaos, with Sudan torn apart by civil war and a humanitarian crisis – and Nigeria ravaged by jihadist violence in its restive northeast.
A security source said: ‘Mariam Cisse has been assassinated in a public square in Tonka by jihadists who accused her of having filmed them for the Malian army.’
They added that her killing was a ‘barbaric’ act.
A local official denounced Ms Cisse’s death as an ‘ignoble act’, adding that her killing was carried out to deter Malians from publicly supporting the military.
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