Many examples of unique architectural structures made out mud and wood hundreds of years ago – as well as about 700,000 ancient manuscripts – are to be found in Timbuktu.
The fighting follows weeks of tension between the secular, separatist, Tuareg-led National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and the Islamists, who teamed up in order to take over the northern two-thirds of Mali in April.
The demonstrators were marching to protest a deal struck between West African leaders and the coup leader Capt. Amadou Sanogo that would have had Traore remain in office for a year, until elections were organized.
ECOWAS lifted previously-imposed sanctions in April, but in a statement released Monday it accused the junta of continuing to interfere in politics in the West African nation.
"These are elements of the presidential guard from the old regime and they're trying to turn things around," Bacary Mariko, a spokesman for the ruling military junta, told Reuters. "We have the situation under control."
Dioncounda Traore, who has been tasked with overseeing a timetable for elections, named 24 ministers Wednesday, none of whom were members of the government toppled in a March military coup.
Mali is now a fractured territory without a state, as competing rebel groups hold sway in the north and tensions between coup leaders and politicians simmer in the south.
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