Central Mali has long endured blockades, but the tactics used by armed groups today go far beyond historical sieges of old empires like Ségou or Hamdallahi. The Katiba Macina, an affiliate of the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), has turned isolation into a deliberate tool of governance—one that punishes defiance with systematic suffocation rather than negotiation.
In villages like Marébougou, Saye, and Kori-Maoundé, blockades are not just military closures; they strangle mobility, commerce, education, and social life. The study Living Under Siege: Cases from JNIM-Influenced Zones in Mali documents how these zones in Mopti and Bandiagara regions have become laboratories for a new form of control. What locals call a benkan—a term borrowed from Bamanan for a pact or compromise—is in reality a set of unilateral demands: forced contributions of zakat on harvests, shuttered schools, mandatory veiling for women, and bans on music and social gatherings. The language of negotiation masks a relationship built on threat and violence.
Marébougou’s brief defiance and swift surrender
Resistance in Marébougou, within Djenné’s administrative area, lasted only two years. The community rejected orders to close schools, impose veiling, suspend markets, and extract agricultural tithes and livestock. The village’s defiance stemmed from a fragile confidence in local defense groups, bolstered by sporadic military patrols and the presence of a donso camp—hunters who had taken up arms against the Katiba Macina. Between 2019 and 2021, these self-defense units were hailed as grassroots anti-terrorism fighters, even as some enriched themselves through cattle theft and extortion. But after their defeat in October 2021, the Katiba Macina imposed a six-month total blockade. Markets vanished, roads became death traps, and fields lay fallow. Survival dictated submission: food ran out, even salt became scarce, and the blockade’s end came only when the village accepted a benkan—not as a choice, but as a desperate bargain to stop the dying.
Targeted killings and economic strangulation
The blockade’s impact radiated beyond Marébougou. In the floodplains of Djenné and Macina, the Katiba Macina targeted influential hunters who had coordinated the village’s defense. These assassinations sent a message: collaborate or face annihilation. In Saye, where the community prides itself on being “good Muslims,” the rejection of benkan was fierce. The Katiba Macina retaliated by burning crops, stealing cattle, and cutting off weekly markets. By 2025, the blockade had morphed into a humanitarian siege—women risked venturing into the bush for firewood and food, while men faced abduction or execution if caught outside the village. The pressure was calculated: overwhelm Saye’s social fabric until resistance collapsed.
In Kori-Maoundé, the story diverged. Since 2018, the village has hosted fighters from Dan Na Ambassagou, a self-defense movement refusing all dialogue with jihadist groups. The blockade here is purely punitive: targeted assassinations, travel bans, and blocked field access. The village’s radical stance stems from a collective memory of colonial resistance—particularly the 1892 battle of Kori-Kori, where French forces seized Bandiagara. Today, Kori-Maoundé shelters displaced families from neighboring villages, but its defiance comes at a cost. Civilians flee to Bamako, Sévaré, or Bandiagara, or survive in worsening conditions, their autonomy eroded by the blockade’s slow suffocation.
Schools, agriculture, and livestock: the pillars of life under siege
The blockade’s first victims are not soldiers, but the structures that sustain rural life. Schools, once a symbol of state presence and hope for the future, now lie empty. Teachers flee, students scatter, and education vanishes—leaving entire generations without the tools to rebuild. Agriculture and livestock, the backbone of the economy, are crippled by inaccessible fields, burned harvests, and stolen herds. Weekly markets, vital for trade in Ségou and Mopti, become battlegrounds or ghost towns. Women, who rely on small-scale farming and commerce, see their independence shrink as the blockade tightens its grip.
Yet life under blockade is not defined solely by loss. In Marébougou, Saye, and Kori-Maoundé, solidarity emerges as a lifeline. Shared meals, pooled water, and collective labor ease the hunger and fear—but only temporarily. These networks delay collapse, proving that villagers are not passive victims. They adapt, resist, and survive, even as the blockade redefines their world.
Mediation: the fragile bridge between force and dialogue
Blockades are not just military tools; they are political experiments in control. Their success depends on the absence of mediators who can translate armed confrontation into negotiation. In Marébougou, neighboring mayors acted as intermediaries, brokering a fragile truce. In Saye, no such dialogue took hold. In Kori-Maoundé, Dan Na Ambassagou’s influence blocks even regional reconciliation teams from engaging with local realities. Without mediation, violence persists—and the blockade’s grip tightens.
From village to village, responses vary: forced submission, prolonged resistance, or pragmatic arrangements. But the underlying question remains: how does a community survive when every connection to the outside world—roads, fields, schools, markets—can be severed overnight? In central Mali, blockades are no longer mere tactics. They are a system of governance built on fear, reshaping not just landscapes, but the very fabric of daily life.
