COMMENTARY
The Sahel is in a crisis because of drought and resultant famine ... but in spite of this there are guns that make mayhem. Why, I have asked, is it easier to get a gund in drought affected areas than it is to get food and water?.

About Mali I have also commented:

I did some work for the UN and World Bank in Mali in the 1980s. As I recall my work was popular with local people, but less so with the UN and the World Bank. In the course of working in many different developing countries I had become aware of a lot of history that as an English education schoolboy was completely outside the established curriculum. Over the years I had become aware of local culture and history that went back hundreds if not thousands of years.

With a perspective that embraces these histories as well as what we now know in the realmn of technoilogy, it should be possible to have a global win-win for soeciety and the economy. Sadly human greed and ignorance gets in the way, and rather than winwin so much of what gets done ends up lose-lose.

This is ridiculous ... it can be changed and it must be changed!

Armed group destroys Timbuktu shrines ... Ansar Dine group occupying northern Mali attacks ancient shrines to Muslim saint in endangered world heritage site.

IMAGE Timbuktu is also home to nearly 100,000 ancient manuscripts, some dating back to the 12th century [Reuters]

A hardline group occupying lawless northern Mali has destroyed a 15th century shrine to a Muslim saint in the fabled city of Timbuktu, witnesses said.

The attack by Ansar Dine group on Friday came just four days after UNESCO agreed to a request by Mali to place Timbuktu on its list of heritage sites in danger following the seizure of its northern two-thirds in April by rebels.

'They have already completely destroyed the mausoleum of Sidi Mahmoud (Ben Amar) and two others. They said they would continue all day and destroy all 16,' local Malian journalist Yeya Tandina said on Saturday by telephone of the 16 most prized resting grounds of local saints in the town which has been listed by UNESCO as an endangered world heritage site.

'They are armed and have surrounded the sites with pick-up trucks. The population is just looking on helplessly,' he said, adding that the Islamists were currently taking pick-axes to the mausoleum of Sidi El Mokhtar, another cherished local saint.

'It looks as if it is a direct reaction to the UNESCO decision,' Timbuktu deputy Sandy Haidara said by telephone, confirming the attacks.

UNESCO condemnation

The UN cultural agency UNESCO on Saturday deplored the 'tragic' destruction called for the rampage to stop.

'This is tragic news for us all,' UNESCO executive committee chair Alissandra Cummins said in a statement issued to the AFP news agency.

'I appeal to all those engaged in the conflict in Timbuktu to exercise their responsibility: For the sake of future generations, spare the legacy of their past!

'Since government forces were routed in April, Ansar Dine and other Islamist groups with links to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) have gained the upper hand over less well-armed Tuaregs whose goal is a secular, independent northern state.

Ansar Dine is pushing for strict sharia, Islamic law, across the whole of the country and deems un-Islamic the shrines of Timbuktu, an expression of the local Sufi brand of the religion.

The saint's 15th-century tomb was also desecrated by extremists in May after groups including Ansar Dine and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb seized control of the vast desert north following a March coup in Bamako.

Beyond its historic mosques, the World Heritage site of Timbuktu, once a cradle of Islamic learning, has 16 cemeteries and mausolea, according to the UNESCO website.

Sometimes called the city of 333 saints, Timbuktu is also home to nearly 100,000 ancient manuscripts, some dating back to the 12th century, preserved in family homes and private libraries under the care of religious scholars.

At its height in the 1500s, the city, a Niger River port at the edge of the Sahara 1,000km north of Bamako, was the key intersection for salt traders travelling from the north and gold traders from the south.