Throughout central Mali’s history, blockades have repeatedly reshaped the lives of those caught within their grasp. From the encircled villages of the Ségou State to the fortified caliphates of Hamdallahi in the 19th century, communities have endured isolation, starvation, and forced surrender. Yet today’s blockades, enforced by the Katiba Macina—a key faction of the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (Jnim)—represent a modern evolution of this age-old tactic. No longer mere military tools, these blockades have become instruments of governance, wielded not only to punish defiance but to impose control without formal administrative structures.
Recent field research in Mopti and Bandiagara regions—including Marébougou, Saye, Kori-Maoundé, and the strategic Parou-Songobia bridge along National Road 15—reveals how these blockades transcend simple closures. They paralyze mobility, agriculture, trade, education, gender relations, and local authority itself. The goal is unambiguous: to render life unbearable for those who refuse to submit.
In occupied villages, combatants often demand what locals call a benkan, a term in the Bamanankan language usually associated with a pact or compromise. Yet what unfolds is anything but mutual agreement. Instead, it is a series of unilateral demands: enforced payment of zakat (Islamic alms) on harvests and livestock, school closures, mandatory veiling for women, bans on music, and restrictions on social gatherings. Beneath the veneer of local terminology lies a coercive reality—one built on fear, threat, and violence.
Marébougou: a brief stand against the tide
Across Mali, the pattern is consistent: suffocate resistance until submission—or at least resignation—becomes the only path to survival. Yet the intensity of the blockade depends on the local balance of power. Where armed resistance is weak, villages may surrender quickly. Where self-defense groups persist, the siege tightens, morphing into a prolonged ordeal where civilians bear the heaviest burden.
In Marébougou, a village in the Djenné district, defiance peaked in 2021. Residents openly rejected Katiba Macina’s demands, including school closures, mandatory veiling, restrictions on markets, and agricultural levies. Their resistance was fueled by regular security patrols and the presence of a donso (hunter) camp—signs of both state support and local resilience during a period (2019–2021) when self-defense groups were widely seen as a grassroots counterterrorism force. Some of these leaders even enjoyed close ties with state forces, though their growing influence came at a cost: extortion, cattle theft, and the monopolization of local resources like water points and grazing lands.
This resistance, however, proved short-lived. After self-defense fighters suffered defeat in October 2021, a total blockade was imposed for six months. Markets vanished. Roads became death traps. Fields lay fallow. Food and medicine vanished—even salt, a staple in Malian cuisine, became scarce. When the blockade finally lifted, Marébougou accepted a benkan not out of conviction, but as a desperate act of survival. The terms were punitive: altered social and religious norms in exchange for minimal access to food, medicine, and mobility.
Targeted killings of influential hunters
The blockade’s grip extended far beyond Marébougou, tightening across the flooded delta regions of Djenné and Macina. The defeat of self-defense groups eroded public trust and emboldened Katiba Macina fighters to escalate pressure on surrounding villages—Sofara, Macina, even Niono. In addition to relentless harassment, the group carried out targeted assassinations of influential hunters, many of whom had led the mobilization for Marébougou’s defense. Accused of collaborating with state forces and exploiting local resources, these figures became symbols of resistance—and were eliminated accordingly.
In Saye, the blockade that began in 2023 intensified through 2024 and 2025, grinding the village’s economy and social fabric to a halt. Unlike Marébougou, Saye’s resistance was rooted in deep religious and cultural defiance. Residents saw themselves as “true Muslims” and refused to submit to an external religious authority. Their reasoning was simple: they had already lost everything—harvests burned, livestock stolen, markets seized—and saw no reason to surrender to a system that had already taken so much. Here, resistance coalesced around traditional authorities, youth organizations, and donsow fighters, with no signs of compromise.
Humanitarian overload as a weapon of surrender
In Saye, the blockade wasn’t just about control—it was about breaking will through suffocation. Fields, pastures, and trade routes became inaccessible. Men who ventured beyond the village were shot or abducted. Women, perceived as less threatening, were sometimes allowed to forage for food, firewood, and straw, but even this fragile freedom came with risks. The blockade weaponized humanitarian needs, turning Saye into a refuge for displaced villagers from neighboring areas—especially after 2023. The sudden influx of people overwhelmed local food and medical supplies, strained public services, and intensified pressure on already weakened infrastructure in towns like Djenné and San. The siege wasn’t just confining; it was deliberately creating a humanitarian crisis to force surrender.
In Kori-Maoundé, in the Bandiagara district, the blockade took on a different tone. Since 2018, the village has been under the influence of Dan Na Ambassagou, a self-defense movement that rejects any negotiation with jihadist groups. Local leaders—village chiefs, imams, mayors—have adopted a hardline stance, leaving no room for dialogue with Katiba Macina. The blockade here is purely punitive, tightening year after year through targeted attacks, assassinations, and restrictions on movement. Access to fields is nearly impossible. Circulation is forbidden. Transport drivers risk death if they stop to pick up passengers. The goal? To isolate a village seen as an enemy stronghold—a place where resistance to compromise remains absolute.
Resistance rooted in history
The siege of Kori-Maoundé is more than a military strategy; it’s a message. The village, a historic bastion of resistance, holds deep memories of defiance—most notably the 1892 Battle of Kori-Kori, where local fighters clashed with French colonial forces in a final stand before Bandiagara fell. For the donsow fighters and villagers, the idea of submitting to a benkan is unthinkable, even as hunger and fear push others to flee toward Bandiagara, Sévaré, or Bamako. The plateau’s rugged terrain and the presence of self-defense groups slow direct assaults, but they cannot halt the slow strangulation of daily life. Civilians pay the price of non-negotiation by enduring increasingly precarious conditions or abandoning their homes entirely.
Even mediation has struggled to break the deadlock. In Marébougou, neighboring mayors acted as intermediaries between the village and Katiba Macina. In Saye, no such initiative gained traction. In Kori-Maoundé, Dan Na Ambassagou’s influence blocks any local dialogue, and regional reconciliation teams remain disconnected from the village’s immediate realities. This disparity highlights a critical truth: blockades are not just military phenomena. They are deeply political, shaped by the presence—or absence—of credible mediators who can transform armed confrontation into negotiation. Without mediation, violence persists.
Schools, fields, and livestock: the pillars of survival
In all three villages, schools were more than places of learning—they were symbols of state presence, social cohesion, and hope for the future. When Katiba Macina arrived, teachers fled, classrooms closed, and students scattered. School closures weren’t collateral damage; they were part of a broader shift, where the retreat of administration cleared space for armed or religious rule. The loss of a school isn’t just about lost education—it’s about the erosion of collective futures.
The first blow of the blockade, however, often strikes agriculture. When fields become inaccessible, farmers are attacked, or harvests are burned, rural economies collapse. In Marébougou, only the closest fields could be cultivated. Elsewhere, insecurity reduced arable land, forcing households to rely on external supplies—supplies that vanished under siege. Livestock and cattle markets, essential to the economies of Ségou and Mopti, became rare, dangerous, or nonexistent. Women, who often manage small-scale trade or market gardening, faced the sharpest decline in autonomy. The blockade didn’t just destroy income—it severed the social and economic networks that sustained these communities.
Community bonds: the unexpected strength of the besieged
Yet survival under blockade isn’t defined solely by suffering. In Marébougou, Saye, and Kori-Maoundé, our research uncovered remarkable acts of solidarity: shared meals, collective water management, support for the sick, division of labor, and aid for vulnerable households. In Saye and Marébougou, many spoke of strengthened community ties in the face of hardship. These bonds didn’t eliminate hunger or fear, but they delayed the total collapse of social fabric. They revealed that villagers are not passive victims—they are active agents in shaping their own survival, creating local systems of protection in the absence of state support.
Marébougou, Saye, and Kori-Maoundé show that blockades in Mali have evolved into a sophisticated territorial control technology. By dominating roads, markets, schools, and social norms, armed groups are reshaping daily life far beyond the villages they physically occupy. Responses vary—forced surrender, prolonged resistance, refusal to negotiate, partial flight, or pragmatic arrangements—but one question unites them all: how do you live when every connection to the outside world—roads, fields, schools, markets—can be severed overnight? In Ségou and Mopti, blockades aren’t just causing shortages—they are establishing a political order built on fear.
