Timbuktu

World News

A security vacuum in the Sahel has left Timbuktu blockaded by Islamist militants

8:23am October 06, 2023

by Emmanuel Akinwotu

The ancient city of Timbuktu in Mali is suffering under a months-long blockade by Islamist militants, as instability grows in a region of the Sahel in West Africa.

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A message on a postcard addressed to a school in the United States.

World News

Why It's Easy — And Hard — To Get A Postcard All The Way From Timbuktu

7:00am September 22, 2018

by Clair MacDougall

When tourism to the fabled city took a downturn, two guys came up with an idea to bring in a little income for the local tour guides.

Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi looks on during an appearance at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, on Aug. 22, at the start of his trial on charges of involvement in the destruction of historic mausoleums in the Malian desert city of Timb

World News

For First Time, Destruction Of Cultural Sites Leads To War Crime Conviction

10:51am September 27, 2016

by Camila Domonoske

Ahmed al-Faqi al-Mahdi was on trial in The Hague for his role in the deliberate destruction of nine mausoleums and a mosque in Timbuktu. The radical Islamist was sentenced to nine years in prison.

Ahmad Faqi al-Mahdi in the courtroom of the International Criminal Court in the Hague last September. Mahdi pleaded guilty to war crimes over the deliberate destruction of buildings at a UNESCO-listed desert heritage site in Mali in 2012.

World News

Militant Who Destroyed Mali Cultural Sites Pleads Guilty To War Crimes

6:17pm August 22, 2016

by Rebecca Hersher

Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi deliberately damaged buildings and ancient manuscripts in Timbuktu in 2012. It is believed to be the first time an act of cultural destruction has been treated as a war crime.

Handout picture dated 1997 and released in 2012 by the UN shows ancient manuscripts displayed at the library in the city of Timbuktu. Al-Qaeda has destroyed ancient texts it considers idolatrous.

Timbuktu's 'Badass Librarians': Checking Out Books Under Al-Qaida's Nose

5:30pm April 23, 2016

by NPR Staff

Librarian Abdel Kader Haidara organized a smuggling operation to keep centuries-old manuscripts out of the hands of al-Qaida. Joshua Hammer wrote about it in The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu.

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French and Malian soldiers patrol next to the Djingareyber Mosque in Timbuktu in 2015. Several of the city's historic and cultural sites were demolished in 2012, during an occupation by Islamist militants.

World News

Demolition Of Timbuktu's Cultural Sites Spurs War-Crimes Trial At The Hague

11:02am March 01, 2016

by Bill Chappell

"Humanity's collective conscience was shocked by the senseless destruction of its common heritage," a prosecutor says. "Words of condemnation are not enough."

In the movie, the cattle herder Kidane (center, played by Ibrahim Ahmed) and his family live in a tent in the mountains near Timbuktu.

Director Of Oscar-Nommed 'Timbuktu' Found A Star In A Refugee Camp

7:03am February 22, 2015

by Rena Silverman

A 12-year-old girl followed him everywhere. And she got the part. Abderrahmane Sissako tells what it's like to make a reality-based movie in Mauritania.