General Sadio Camara

Amid a combined offensive by Tuareg and jihadist fighters against the Bamako junta at dawn on 25 April the killing of Defence Minister General Sadio Camara the architect of the defence partnership with Russia has struck a symbolic blow against General Assimi Goïta's regime...

US Bureau of Africa Affairs boss Nicholas Checker went to Bamako in February on an official visit and on 17 March the US lifted the sanctions it had imposed on senior military junta leaders General Sadio Camara (Russia's most vocal partisan in the junta) Alou Boï Diarra and Adama Bagayoko over human rights abuses in the counter-insurgency war (AC Vol 67 No 5 Washington courts the juntas)...

Like Goïta and fellow putschist Sadio Camara he is a graduate of the École Militaire Interarmes in Koulikoro where the European Union hosted its ill-fated military training mission (AC Vol 61 No 17 The junta haggles on transition)...

On 14 August the defence ministers of Mali Burkina Faso and Niger – Generals Sadio Camara Célestin Simporé and Salifou Modi – were in Moscow for talks with their Russian counterpart Andrei Belousov...

Goïta himself has said nothing so far but the Bamako rumour mill has it that his number two Colonel Sadio Camara in Moscow at the time exploded in rage on hearing about the book's content and did not even wait for his boss's consent in ordering Sangaré's arrest on 2 March...

He was at the centre of the coterie behind the second Mali coup in May 2021 and he is brother-in-law to Goïta's closest ally and counsellor Defence Minister Sadio Camara who is responsible for having invited in the Wagner Group (AC Vol 62 No 14 Paris makes up with the junta)...

Defence Minister Col Sadio Camara and head of State Security Col Modibo Koné served in the National Guard while former interim Prime Minister Col Abdoulaye Maïga served with the Gendarmerie...

On her stopover in Mali Nuland met Prime Minister Lieutenant Colonel Abdoulaye Maïga and three officers in key regime roles: Malick Diaw head of the National Transition Council; reconciliation minister Ismaël Wagué; and defence minister Sadio Camara seen as a link to Bamako's military partnership with Russia...

Col Goïta and his defence minister Col Sadio Camara appear determined to show that Mali can tackle its security challenges without the help of UN or western forces...

Diarra and defence minister Colonel Sadio Camara have visited Moscow in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine apparently unbothered by the international condemnation of it...