| Publicity: | For most people, Timbuktu means nothing more than “in the middle of nowhere”, but for those living there, in the West African country of Mali, it’s a real place with a lot of very real problems. Like being taken over last year by radical Islamic militants who tried to impose their strict beliefs on a people famous for their easy going attitudes and love of music and colour. |
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| “When the Islamists took control, it was like an entombed city, a dead city. Everyone was inside their houses, from fear of reprimand, fear of humiliation, fear of being brutalized, fear of violence.” Hamadou Maiga, Timbuktu resident |
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| Mali’s known for its music, art and stunning mud brick architecture. But the tourists and music fans who usually flock there have been absent since a coup by local tribal rebels was hijacked by Al Qaeda-linked jihadists last year. |
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| Suddenly Northern Mali, a lawless region the size of France usually ignored by the West, had become one of the globe’s most significant terrorist threats. |
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| In what is an eye-popping visual feast, Foreign Correspondent’s Eric Campbell and cameraman David Martin take an epic, spectacular 1,000 kilometre road trip through this seldom seen corner of the world. A place that’s suddenly been catapulted into world attention as the latest prospective haven for Al Qaeda. |
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| “Yes it was really a catastrophe. People were thinking, please France, come take Mali.” Babah Salah, musician |
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| In January Mali was saved by its former colonial occupier, France, who invaded the north and kicked out the Islamists. Welcomed as a liberator by thousands of ecstatic Malians, the French President flew to Timbuktu to pronounce it safe. |
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| But for how long? Campbell and Martin set off on an uncertain and sometimes dangerous journey from Mali’s capital Bamako, to find out how the far off residents of Timbuktu are faring now, how they survived the reign of terror and if they’re confident the coast is clear. |
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| Along the way they meet a cast of fascinating characters and document a way of life and history that could have been lost had the Islamists succeeded in their goal of taking over the entire country. |
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| A couple of days after the crew checked out of the only functioning hotel in Timbuktu, it was attacked and 11 people were killed in the fighting. It’s believed more rebels are hiding out in desert caves just waiting for the French to leave before moving back in and taking over again. |
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| Moon/Interior nightclub dance floor. Band playing | Music | 00:00 |
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| CAMPBELL: It’s close to midnight in Bamako, capital of Mali and a centre of West African music. | 00:26 |
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| Music | 00:34 |
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| CAMPBELL: In a rundown, downtown club the night is just getting started. | 00:36 |
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| Music | 00:42 |
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| CAMPBELL: This may be one of the poorest countries on earth but when it comes to art and music, it’s one of the richest. | 00:50 |
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| Music | 00:57 |
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| CAMPBELL: An intoxicating mix of traditional and modern instruments and rhythms has created a genre as vibrant and even sensual as the night owls who come here. | 01:00 |
| Baba Salah sings | [Singing] | 01:12 |
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| CAMPBELL: Baba Salah is known as Mali’s Jimi Hendrix. | 01:17 |
| Baba Salah plays guitar | Music | 01:19 |
| People dance | BABA SALAH: “Music is a very powerful means of communication. | 01:27 |
| Baba Salah sings | [Singing] | 01:35 |
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| BABA SALAH: With music artists can protest and talk about problems”. | 01:38 |
| People dance | CAMPBELL: In January, all that creativity and freedom nearly disappeared. This city of two million people was almost overrun by an army of religious zealots. Islamist rebels who’d conquered half the country suddenly swept south toward the capital. In the north, they’d banned music as un-Islamic, outlawed dancing and forced women to cover under pain of flogging. | 01:45 |
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| Music | 02:15 |
| Baba Salah | BABA SALAH: “Yes, it was really a catastrophe. People had lost all hope”. | 02:17 |
| Return to Bab Salah and band playing in nightclub | Music | 02:24 |
| French strike on Islamists | Music | 02:35 |
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| CAMPBELL: They were saved at the last moment by their old colonial master, France. After a desperate plea from Mali’s government, France sent warplanes, helicopters and combat troops to smash their advance. Within days the Islamists had fled into the desert, and France had liberated their former base, the fabled ancient city of Timbuktu. | 02:40 |
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| Music | 03:10 |
| Baba Salah | BABA SALAH: “It wasn’t the time for people to think these are colonialists. People were thinking, please France come and take Mali. There were plenty of them”. | 03:15 |
| French troops | CAMPBELL: Mali had dodged a bullet. What nobody knows is whether or how soon it might be fired on again. | 03:25 |
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| BABA SALAH: “If the French hadn’t intervened that day | 03:36 |
| Baba Salah | it would have all been over for West Africa - because if they control Bamako as a base, they can control everywhere”. | 03:40 |
| Bamako/Crew prepare for travel to Timbuktu | Music | 03:50 |
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| CAMPBELL: To see what’s now happening in the north, we’re going on a thousand kilometre road trip to Timbuktu. | 03:58 |
| Road travel | Music | 04:05 |
| Eric in car | CAMPBELL: Timbuktu was once a byword for the middle of nowhere – a place so remote many thought it was fictional. | 04:23 |
| Driving to Timbuktu – traffic chaos | In recent years, it became a chic tourist destination, with daily flights from Bamako. But thanks to the war, Timbuktu is again a distant and forbidding destination. The only way in is by road and once we leave the southern towns there’ll be a real risk of attacks. | 04:32 |
| Azima in car | We’re travelling with Mohamed Azima, a Timbuktu tourist guide who fled the city when the Islamists came. He’s going back for the first time to see if it’s safe to bring his family. | 05:00 |
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| MOHAMED AZIMA: “I’m so happy to go back again because like one year I’ve not been there and I so miss Timbuktu. I’m so lucky and I’m so happy”. | 05:14 |
| Crew car passes convoy | CAMPBELL: It’s not long before we see signs of the continuing danger. We’re caught in a giant convoy of French and Malian troops heading north as reinforcements. The bulk of rebel fighters are believed to have retreated to mountain bases near the Algerian border or blended into the local community. Nobody believes they’ve given up the fight. | 05:53 |
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| Music | 05:52 |
| Islamist videos | CAMPBELL: Like the Taliban in Afghanistan, they taunt the West with defiant videos. They call themselves Ansar Dine, meaning ‘defenders of the faith’. And they openly style themselves as allies of al-Qaeda. | 05:57 |
| Hamaha on video | OMAR HAMAHA: “I’m sending this message to France and America and the NATO countries. The mujahidin are ready to attack any country at any time. We are not here to overrun the cities, we are here for jihad”. CAMPBELL: This is their military commander, Omar Hamaha, | 06:17 |
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| being interviewed in Timbuktu last year. | 06:34 |
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| OMAR HAMAHA: “We are ready to fight against France, America and all NATO countries. We consider their power to be no stronger than a cobweb. How can they threaten us with a cobweb? We will take our fight to France, to America to all the world and we will fly the flag of Islam from where the sun rises to where it sets. Peace be upon you”. | 06:38 |
| Riverbank at dusk | Music | 07:07 |
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| CAMPBELL: It’s hard to reconcile their hatred of Mali’s culture and heritage with the laid-back openness of most ordinary Malians. | 07:17 |
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| Music | 07:25 |
| People washing utensils in river |
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| CAMPBELL: We spend our first night in the river city of Segou. All along the banks, men and women socialise and bathe together even as the call to prayer rings out from the mosque. | 07:35 |
| River at sunset | Music | 07:51 |
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| CAMPBELL: The Niger River, Africa’s third longest, made the old Malian empire a beacon of enlightenment, bringing new ideas, new faiths and the prosperity for people to think beyond their daily needs. | 08:01 |
| Man shaving salt | For a time, river cities like Timbuktu grew rich trading gold, spices and Saharan salt. | 08:22 |
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| Music | 08:30 |
| Market | CAMPBELL: The markets remain, but the wealth is long gone. Invasions and shifting trade routes robbed the river cities of their glory centuries ago. | 08:33 |
| Village at sunset | Today just one person in four can read and write. The average income is just $600 a year. Yet there’s still a sense of joyfulness here you rarely see in the West. | 08:47 |
| Landscape at sunset | Music | 09:04 |
| Car shots |
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| French army trucks | CAMPBELL: As we head further north, across the baking Savannah, we see villagers cheering the French army, even flying their flag. The Islamists were just up the road and advancing fast when the French suddenly stopped them in their tracks. | 09:21 |
| Azima and Eric in car | MOHAMED AZIMA: “Just one hour’s drive from here…” CAMPBELL: “And then after | 09:40 |
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| here just a twelve hour drive into Bamako?” | 09:42 |
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| MOHAMED AZIMA: “To Bamako yes, so the French people do a very good job for us. Everybody was happy, so that’s the reason why you see the kids… everybody see them… everybody wants to say thank you”. | 09:45 |
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| CAMPBELL: “Doesn’t anybody here like the Islamists?” | 09:56 |
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| MOHAMED AZIMA: “I think everybody doesn’t like Islamists, especially in Mali because in Mali it’s like a country where many people are Muslim but not Islamists. The people from Mali don’t want the Islamist way – with the Sharia of Islamists. It’s very bad”. CAMPBELL: “So it’s a more moderate form of…”. MOHAMED AZIMA: “It’s more moderate. You can pray, you can do what you want, and you’re free to do what you want. If you’re not Muslim, you’re welcome. This is the reason why I love my country and this is the reason why many people want the intervention of the French”. | 09:58 |
| Djenne general views | CAMPBELL: Our next stop is a place that more than anywhere encapsulates what Malians love about their culture and what the Islamists hate. | 10:27 |
| Djenne mud architecture | It’s Timbuktu’s sister city of Djenne. SOPHIE SARIN: “I’m obviously biased but I think I’m also quite fair if I say that Djenne is ten times as beautiful as Timbuktu”. | 10:40 |
| Eric and Sophie walk | CAMPBELL: We’ve come here to meet a woman who’s trying to preserve some of Mali’s unique culture. SOPHIE SARIN: “Djenne’s a city that | 11:01 |
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| you could say still lives in the 14th century. I mean there’s the mobile phone and there’s electricity and there’s TV, but those three things are about the only thing that has changed”. | 11:08 |
| Sophie pointing to peanut butter in the market | Tigadègè... it’s called tigadègè....and it’s peanut butter, and it’s used in many of the local dishes. | 11:21 |
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| CAMPBELL: Born in Sweden but married to a Malian, Sophie Sarin has lived here since 2006. | 11:29 |
| Eric and Sophie | “Do you ever feel like the odd person out here?” SOPHIE SARIN: “I am the odd person out. I’m the only white person in Djenne and I have always been for the last seven years. I’m the only white person here”. CAMPBELL: “Out of what, fifteen thousand people?” SOPHIE SARIN: “Around fifteen thousand people, yeah”. | 11:35 |
| Lizard |
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| Djenne at dusk | CAMPBELL: Djenne is Mali’s most traditional city. Every building is World Heritage listed and made of local mud, from the Great Mosque, the largest adobe structure in the world, to the smallest house. | 11:55 |
| Builders working with mud | SOPHIE SARIN: “I was just overwhelmed by the beauty of this place. I’d never seen anything so extraordinary with beautiful mud architecture, two storeys high. I just thought that Africa really didn’t have that sort of thing but here it is”. | 12:10 |
| Djenne streets | CAMPBELL: She insists almost everyone finds the hard line rules of Islamists to be abhorrent. | 12:34 |
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| SOPHIE SARIN: “They do not like the idea of Sharia. I hardly know somebody who doesn’t want Mali to remain a secular state. They like the freedom of religion here - even if they’re Muslim, they like it. | 12:41 |
| Sophie. Super: | The idea that you should impose your belief on somebody - it doesn’t work here. They just think, oh he thinks like that... she thinks like that - and we must leave them to whatever they believe. This is the Malian way”. | 12:56 |
| Islamists video | CAMPBELL: “Where have the Islamists come from?” SOPHIE SARIN: “A lot of them don’t come from here. A lot of them come from North Africa, down from Algeria. They’re coming from Pakistan, they’re coming from Chad, Sudan and people that have been in | 13:08 |
| Sophie | conflict for a long time and they don’t know what else to do with themselves. They just move from one conflict to the next”. | 13:25 |
| Tuaregs/Military | CAMPBELL: But some Malians from a minority group called the Tuaregs did back the Islamists. They’re descendants of Saharan nomads, known for their bright turbans and fierce sense of independence. | 13:31 |
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| A militant Tuareg group called the MNLA has long fought for a separate homeland. Their firepower helped the Islamists conquer the north but they were soon betrayed. SOPHIE SARIN: “Islamists used the MNLA as a kind of Trojan horse in a way to take... to come into Mali. | 13:48 |
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| Once they were in, they kicked out the MNLA more or less straight away and then they took all the territory”. | 14:08 |
| Manuscripts library. Sophie at table | CAMPBELL: It seems strange to us, but the Islamists also planned to destroy centuries of Islamic scholarship. Sophie Sarin helps runs a library in Djenne storing ancient manuscripts. | 14:21 |
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| Many of them are from the 14th and 15th centuries when universities in Djenne and Timbuktu attracted students from all over the Islamic world. | 14:40 |
| Kids reciting texts | Even today, manuscripts continue to be produced at the madrasahs and Koran schools. | 14:50 |
| Boy copying manuscript | SOPHIE SARIN: “The great families of Djenne always.. almost always had copyists.... that would copy the manuscripts. And this is a tradition that continues still now”. | 15:02 |
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| CAMPBELL: “And the remarkable thing is that they kept them - family after family, father to son, mother to daughter, over centuries”. | 15:17 |
| Mud houses | SOPHIE SARIN: “Absolutely incredible and if you see the conditions here with the | 15:24 |
| Sophie | rainy season and the mud houses and the water that seeps in through often, the termites, | 15:27 |
| Sophie entering library | it is unbelievable that we have so many manuscripts here”. | 15:33 |
| Inside library. Digitising manuscripts | CAMPBELL: With support from the British Library she’s trying to digitise them so they’ll be safe forever. | 15:38 |
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| As well as religious tracts, the manuscripts record philosophy, science, medicine, astrology, even magic spells written by holy men called marabouts. To the Islamists that makes them heresy. | 15:50 |
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| SOPHIE SARIN: “Djenne is known for being a city of magic | 16:05 |
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| and the marabouts of Djenne are well known and you could say feared and revered throughout Mali and maybe even throughout West Africa. | 16:09 |
| Sophie | It is mysticism....it is also... I think of Djenne as a sort of, if you could make it almost like a comparison to the Catholicism of Mexico or of South America. It’s quite mixed in with early traditions and it’s not entirely orthodox. | 16:22 |
| Reptile skulls | And this is of course what the Islamists in the north don’t like, they don’t like any of this slightly not orthodox stuff”. | 16:41 |
| People on street | CAMPBELL: The manuscripts aren’t the only part of Mali’s tradition that offends the Islamists. It’s even their delight in colour and decoration. | 16:52 |
| Women weaving | Sophie runs a boutique hotel but visitors stopped coming when the fighting started. So to keep her hotel staff employed, she designs clothing that’s woven on site and decorated with traditional mud dyes called bogolan. | 17:04 |
| Sophie explains mud decorations | SOPHIE SARIN: “This is actually mud from the Nigeri River that they’re using and they’re making a pattern. | 17:25 |
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| This is a zebra pattern”. CAMPBELL: In Timbuktu any clothing with patterns was outlawed. | 17:33 |
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| “They all had to be puritan and plain”. SOPHIE SARIN: “Yeah, yeah exactly but fortunately | 17:40 |
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| they weren’t here, they were in the north - and Djenne was never touched by any... I mean we were quite worried that they were going to come, but they didn’t get as far as this”. | 17:45 |
| Mopti | Music | 17:53 |
| Crew car arrives at Mopti. Mopti general views | CAMPBELL: Eighty kilometres from Djenne we come to the 17th century city of Mopti, the gateway to the northern deserts. It’s another little known, little visited but extraordinary city with a natural canal that once earned it the moniker of Mali’s Venice. With a huge army base nearby, it’s also the last city the authorities deem completely secure. For the rest of our journey we’ll be taking protection. | 18:05 |
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| Music | 18:46 |
| Pan left to Eric to camera. Malian soldiers in b/g | CAMPBELL: “Okay well this is the day we’re going to make a straight run into Timbuktu, just stopping to take the ferry across the river. We’re going to have two car loads of armed Malian soldiers, one in front, one behind – so I guess until things settle down, this is the new package tour to Timbuktu”. | 18:51 |
| Road views | Less than an hour up the road we pass the town of Konna. This was how close the Islamists came when they swept south in January. We start to see signs of fighting, vehicles destroyed by French helicopter fire as they were pushed back. Our army escorts insist we stay between their vehicles but as we reach the turn off to Timbuktu, in a town that was long occupied by the Islamists, the only danger is being killed with kindness. | 19:14 |
| Kids run towards camera | KIDS: Mali, Mali! | 19:50 |
| Kids surround Eric |
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| Soldier holds back children. Eric to camera | CAMPBELL: “Well we’ve stopped to get some petrol here and we’ve been literally mobbed by hundreds of kids. They’re just very happy to see outsiders after what they’ve been through. [chants with the kids] Mali! Mali! Mali! Mali!” | 20:03 |
| Kids | KIDS: Mali, Mali! | 20:18 |
| Driving in Sahel Desert | Music | 20:24 |
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| CAMPBELL: Eventually, the last stretch of tar disappears and the dirt gives way to sand. We’re now in the heart of the Sahel Desert. The road, such as it is, is dotted with Malian army checkpoints, only allowing passage with special permits. As we drive through the desert, it’s easy to understand the mystique Timbuktu once held. | 20:33 |
| Historical drawings of Timbuktu | Europeans had heard of its legendary wealth but none had seen it for hundreds of years. In the 18th and 19th century, many European explorers died trying to reach the desert city. | 21:05 |
| Driving through desert. Pictures of Caillié fades up over | It wasn’t until 1828 that the Frenchman René Caillié became the first to return alive. He only succeeded by learning Arabic and posing as a lone Muslim traveller. Back in France he claimed a 10,000 franc prize for surviving the journey, later dying of tuberculosis he caught on it. | 21:25 |
| Towing broken down car out of sand | Four-wheel drives have made the trip infinitely easier and safer, but after hundreds of kilometres of sand, dirt and dunes, dealing with yet another breakdown in fifty degree heat we start to wonder if we’ll ever get there. | 21:52 |
| Azima digs out car | Finally Azima gets down and digs our car free. He’s not going to spend another night away from Timbuktu. | 22:20 |
| Guys push car | MOHAMED AZIMA: “I help so we make it, | 22:29 |
| Azima in car | because I want to see my home”. CAMPBELL: “You’re pretty keen to get back aren’t you?” MOHAMED AZIMA: “Sure”. CAMPBELL: “Not long now”. MOHAMED AZIMA: “Yeah, very close”. | 22:34 |
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| CAMPBELL: But this close to home, Azima’s joy is tempered with uncertainty. As an ethnic Tuareg, he fears his neighbours may now see him as the enemy. | 22:42 |
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| MOHAMED AZIMA: “This is why I am afraid about it. I’m really afraid. I’m so happy to go, and I’m a little bit afraid, because... some people they think all the Tuareg people were Arabist or they were Islamists – they were bad people. | 22:55 |
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| It’s taking maybe some time for people to understand I don’t like the Islamist people. I hate these people because they do something bad to my city, to my country, to break everything. To take me out from my home”. | 23:07 |
| Azima and Eric at ferry | CAMPBELL: Azima is about to get something else to worry about. Late in the afternoon we reach the ferry to cross the Niger River. The news is not good. | 23:30 |
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| MOHAMED AZIMA: “He said he’s just heard what’s happened – they have a bomb, the Islamists. They have something down in Timbuktu. We don’t know exactly what’s happened”. CAMPBELL: “There’s been a bombing in Timbuktu last night?” MOHAMED AZIMA: “Yes, last night”. CAMPBELL: “Oh so maybe things haven’t settled down as much as people had hoped. Are you surprised by that?” MOHAMED AZIMA: “I’m surprised yes, because I think it’s a safe place before and now I’m really… I just heard it now. It’s bad news”. | 23:44 |
| Soldiers board ferry/Ferry crossing | CAMPBELL: If all goes well, we’ll be in Timbuktu within two hours but we’re now even more uncertain of what we’ll find. It’s a frustratingly slow crossing, the ferry navigating a shallow channel. | 24:12 |
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| But we soon smell the clean white sand of the Sahara and Azima’s mood brightens. MOHAMED AZIMA: “I’m so happy to see my Timbuktu. | 24:32 |
| Azima on ferry | Tonight I want to sleep just on the sand, I want to reach the sand. I miss the desert”. CAMPBELL: “You’re going to sleep on the sand tonight?” MOHAMED AZIMA: “I don’t want blankets, I don’t want nothing. I want just to sleep in the sand”. | 24:42 |
| End of ferry crossing | Across the river, there’s a feeling of celebration | 24:52 |
| Azima greets friends | that the Islamists have gone. Azima sees old friends the moment he steps ashore. “You’ve got a few friends here”. MOHAMED AZIMA: “Yeah, it’s my home”. | 25:01 |
| Azima into car | CAMPBELL: But we hear more disturbing news of a suicide bombing. | 25:15 |
| Soldiers/Remains of car | The target was the French base at Timbuktu’s airport. Islamists exploded a car bomb, killing a Malian soldier, and tried to storm the base. We soon pass the smouldering debris. It’s the first attack since the French came here and we’re warned not to stop. We barely notice that we’ve reached our destination. | 25:20 |
| Timbuktu | The atmosphere in the centre is palpably tense. The soldiers edgy in the wake of the suicide bombing. But even this can’t dampen Azima’s excitement. | 25:52 |
| Azima in car | He’s phoned ahead to let his neighbours know he’s coming. Throughout the drive, he’s been nervous about the reception they’ll give. Will they blame Tuaregs like him for what happened. | 26:12 |
| Azima homecoming |
| 26:34 |
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| Rather than shunning him, it seems the entire neighbourhood has come to greet him. | 26:47 |
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| [Singing] | 26:52 |
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| CAMPBELL: “That’s quite a welcome Azima”. MOHAMED AZIMA: “It’s a really good welcome. I’m so surprised. It’s a big welcome”. | 27:05 |
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| [Singing] | 27:10 |
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| CAMPBELL: “Is it good to be home?” MOHAMED AZIMA: “It’s very good to be home. I feel like a strong man tonight. Very good”. | 27:13 |
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| [Singing] | 27:19 |
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| CAMPBELL: The welcome belies the animosity many Tuaregs now face, particularly from Mali’s army. | 27:24 |
| Soldier at homecoming festivities | The decision of the separatist group, the MNLA, to side with the Islamists has made them all fear reprisals. For tonight though, everyone just seems glad to be home. | 27:32 |
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| [Singing] | 27:48 |
| Timbuktu dawn | Music | 27:59 |
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| CAMPBELL: At dawn we watch the city slowly come to life. After all the build-up, Timbuktu is surprisingly small and desperately poor. Once a lush oasis, it’s been slowly swallowed by the Sahara. But there’s a real sense of delight at being free again. More people are moving back every day. There are signs everywhere of why they fled. | 28:08 |
| Posters with faces scratched out |
| 28:50 |
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| “Hello, how are you? Where are the faces?” MAN OUTSIDE SHOP: “The Islamists removed them”. CAMPBELL: “Really? That’s crazy”. MAN OUTSIDE SHOP: “Yes”. | 28:52 |
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| CAMPBELL: “Even from an advertisement”. MAN OUTSIDE SHOP: “Yes”. | 29:03 |
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| CAMPBELL: The Islamists not only banned entertainment like football, television and music, they erased every depiction of human faces, declaring portraits to be un-Islamic. For some reason even this camel’s face was deemed indecent. | 29:07 |
| Hamadou greets men | Far worse than vandalism was the terror they instilled in the community. Hamadou Maiga heads Timbuktu’s crisis committee, trying to help people rebuild their lives after 10 months of occupation. | 29:30 |
| Men at mosque | HAMADOU MAIGA: “When the Islamists took control it was like a ghost town, a dead city. Dead because everyone was inside their houses, from fear of reprimand, fear of humiliation, fear of being brutalised, fear of violence. | 29:46 |
| Hamadou | They had an inhumane attitude – these people pretended to be Muslims but their acts were not the way of Islam”. | 30:06 |
| Islamist file footage | CAMPBELL: It’s been the most traumatic time since Moroccans invaded in the 16th century but the medieval Moors were men of culture compared to the 21st century Islamists. A fanatical collection of North Africans and Pakistanis, they had no respect for different traditions or beliefs. Their military commander, Omar Hamaha made that clear in this interview in Timbuktu last year. | 30:14 |
| File footage. Hamaha interview | REPORTER: “Do you want Sharia law for the whole of Mali or just the creation of a Tuareg state in the north of Mali?” | 30:48 |
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| OMAR HAMAHA: “We want Sharia for the whole of Mali. This is not something for Arabs or Tuaregs but for all Muslims”. | 30:54 |
| Eric and Azima visits Zeina and Che | CAMPBELL: Azima takes me to meet some friends who suffered the rebels’ version of Islamic law. At 18, Zeina fell in love with her neighbour Che and had a baby. Two months after the birth, the Islamists discovered they weren’t yet married. CHE: “The problem with the Islamists was the boy. | 31:10 |
| Zeina and Che with baby | The boy was born at her family’s home and they asked me why I was there. I told them that this is my sister. The Islamists knew it wasn’t true so they took me to the prison for two nights and later took me to the court to decide what to do with me”. | 31:41 |
| File footage of flogging | Music | 32:00 |
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| CAMPBELL: On the 20th of June they were taken to the main square by the Sankore mosque to be publicly flogged. Despite the prohibition on showing faces, the Islamists allowed the punishment to be filmed to spread the message of the new Sharia. CHE: “They took us by car to the square | 32:06 |
| Zeina and Che with baby | and they beat us 100 times. Four of them took turns, 25 each”. | 32:33 |
| File footage of flogging | CAMPBELL: Zeina, still recovering from the birth, was punished just as harshly. ZEINA: “I felt very bad. | 32:44 |
| Zeina with baby | They beat me hundreds of times. | 32:54 |
| File footage of flogging | They beat me very badly. | 32:59 |
| Baby | There were a lot of people watching. The Islamists are not good people”. | 33:05 |
| Islamists destroying shrine | CAMPBELL: As well as whipping people, the Islamists demolished some of the city’s holiest shrines. | 33:15 |
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| This was one of several tombs of Muslim saints. There are said to be 333 saints buried in the town, but the militants denounced that as idol worship and got out their sledgehammers. | 33:25 |
| Djenne | Some of the destruction they wreaked can only be explained as spite. | 33:48 |
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| Earlier on our journey, we saw how Timbuktu’s sister city, Djenne was trying to preserve centuries of priceless manuscripts. | 33:59 |
| Sophie and man digitising manuscripts | Sophie Sarin, the expatriate Swedish designer, is leading a project to digitise them. | 34:14 |
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| SOPHIE SARIN: “I’m really privileged to be able to be part of that. It’s an exciting thing because we never know what we’re going to find. | 34:21 |
| Sophie | We think maybe we’ll find something that is going to revolutionise the way we’re thinking about West Africa, who knows? There could be anything in these documents”. | 34:27 |
| Sophie with man looking at manuscript | CAMPBELL: While she was trying to save them, the Islamists in Timbuktu decided to destroy them. | 34:36 |
| Eric walks with Azima in library to destroyed manuscripts | “So this is what they did when they left?” MOHAMED AZIMA: “Yes exactly. They destroyed all these manuscripts, this big treasure from Timbuktu and from the world”. CAMPBELL: In their last act before they fled the city, | 34:48 |
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| the Islamists torched all the manuscripts they could find. | 35:01 |
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| MOHAMED AZIMA: “They burnt them and put fire here and you can see how… all manuscripts from the 15th century…” CAMPBELL: “15th century and they just destroyed them?” MOHAMED AZIMA: “Yes”. | 35:06 |
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| CAMPBELL: “It’s just ash”. MOHAMED AZIMA: Just ash. | 35:15 |
| Library interior | This was a public library, purpose built to protect the manuscripts from the ravages of time and weather. | 35:21 |
| Azima picks through ashes | “How do you feel about that as a Muslim and as someone | 35:25 |
| Eric and Azima by destroyed manuscripts | who has grown up here?” MOHAMED AZIMA: “I feel very bad because I think Islam are never told to do something like this because this… it’s against Islam. So why they do it? So… it’s very bad”. | 35:30 |
| Azima picks up empty satchel | You see, it’s empty... nothing inside. I cannot believe it. | 35:41 |
| Mud buildings in Timbuktu | CAMPBELL: Fortunately most of Timbuktu’s manuscripts | 35:56 |
| Haidara shows Eric manuscript | were saved. They were hidden or smuggled out by families that have safeguarded private collections for generations. “How old is it?” ABDEL KADER HAIDARA: “The manuscript is from the 11th century”. CAMPBELL: “11th century, 1000 years?” ABDEL KADER HAIDARA: “Yes, it’s a Quran with a commentary”. CAMPBELL: “That’s incredible, it’s beautiful”. | 35:59 |
| Haidara with manuscript | Abdel Kader Haidara has one of Timbuktu’s biggest collections. He organised a covert operation to spirit out the private libraries. | 36:20 |
| Eric looks at manuscript | The owners hid them in suitcases or crates and transported them south, sometimes bribing Islamists to look the other way. | 36:34 |
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| ABDEL KADER HAIDARA: “It was very difficult and risky but with the help of the | 36:43 |
| Haidara | community of Timbuktu, with the imams and the truck drivers and all the business people, we got the job done”. | 36:51 |
| Haidara shows manuscripts | CAMPBELL: He’s brought some of his favourite manuscripts out from hiding but for now he’s keeping the rest in a secret place. | 37:05 |
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| ABDEL KADER HAIDARA: “The importance of the manuscripts is that they are part of our heritage. | 37:15 |
| Haidara | Not for one family, one place, or one country, but for the heritage of humanity”. | 37:21 |
| Men at mosque |
| 37:36 |
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| CAMPBELL: At the main mosque we find a memorial being held to the Malian soldier killed in the suicide bombing. The ten Islamists who the French shot during the attack go unmourned. Ben Assayouti is the mosque’s Imam. | 37:41 |
| Assayouti | BEN ASSAYOUTI: “It was an act of terrorism. Everyone is alarmed, everyone is panicked by this situation”. | 38:00 |
| Men at memorials service at mosque | CAMPBELL: His family has been in charge of the mosque since it opened in 1327, when Timbuktu was one of the greatest centres of Islamic scholarship. But he had to play peacemaker as gun toting fanatics told them how to be Muslims. | 38:15 |
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| BEN ASSAYOUTI: “People were concerned that our young people would take up arms and there would be a war. | 38:39 |
| Assayouti | Happily they didn’t give in to this provocation and we were able to keep a lid on the situation”. | 38:50 |
| Mosque/French flag | CAMPBELL: Not surprisingly most people in Timbuktu see the French as liberators, but you never see them in the city.. | 38:57 |
| French army camp | They’re hunkered down in the old airport. The suicide bombing that took place just hours before we arrived showed the Islamists can still strike back. | 39:09 |
| French troops at Algerian border | Further north, French troops are still trying to oust them from mountain bases near the Algerian border. SOPHIE SARIN: “I don’t think it’s possible they will take over the cities again like they did before or the whole northern territory, but I think that we’re in for probably a rough ride when it comes to suicide bombings and that sort of thing. I don’t think that, you can easily, very easily just get rid of that. | 39:27 |
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| They are so entrenched into those mountains in the north, they have been there for years. They have tunnels, they have been able to stock food – | 39:56 |
| Sophie | they’ve been there for a long, long time and that’s probably where they’re keeping their hostages and everything so it’s difficult to just get rid of these sort of people if they have that, those deep roots in a place”. | 40:08 |
| Bombed car rubble | CAMPBELL: The suicide bombing at Timbuktu Airport was followed by a fierce gunfight. | 40:27 |
| Eric with Samake inside airport terminal | Inside the bullet-riddled terminal I meet a young VIP who’s appealing for the French to stay. | 40:35 |
| Samake | YEAH SAMAKE: “I doubt the French will invest as much as they have and leave before the assurance that peace will be able to be maintained”. | 40:41 |
| Eric with Samake | CAMPBELL: Yeah Samake is a popular mayor who’s running for president in the July 7 elections to restore civilian rule. | 40:49 |
| Samake | YEAH SAMAKE: “So we hope they will stay longer. Some have given the impression that they will leave soon. I doubt they will do so because it won’t be the best option”. | 40:57 |
| French trucks loading on to ferry | CAMPBELL: But the French are already drawing down their forces. They have four thousand soldiers in northern Mali, an area the size of France. Half of them are due to leave by July. | 41:07 |
| Malian soldier on back of truck | All agree Mali’s poorly paid, poorly equipped army is no match for the Islamists. In January, most of the army retreated as the rebels swept south. So France is relying on a UN peace keeping force to take over when it leaves. “The great fear | 41:24 |
| Eric with Samake | is that the Sahara will become like another Afghanistan, just a breeding ground for extremism and terrorism”. | 41:45 |
| Samake. Super: | YEAH SAMAKE: “It can but should we let it happen? We also have the power to stop that from happening. We have to work together. In the past previous administrations, previous governments of Mali have not given the sense of investment, the sense of involvement in eradicating extremism. | 41:52 |
| Village | It breeds because people have no other options. If we have option to attend schools in our villages, if we have the hope that after school we get a job, why would we strap an explosive to ourselves or let our children strap explosive to themselves? We all hope for a better tomorrow. The reason why people do this is lack of hope. | 42:09 |
| French loading trucks on to ferry | We cannot afford a country owned by terrorists. We can’t, the world cannot. Australia cannot either. Because then they’ll prepare themselves and threaten Western interests”. | 42:40 |
| Zeina and Che at home |
| 42:54 |
| Che sits with Eric. Shows pictures on phone | CAMPBELL: Che who married Zeina immediately after they were flogged, has just enjoyed some small revenge. After the attack on the French base, he took cell phone pictures of the dead Islamists and circulated them around Timbuktu. | 43:02 |
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| “Is that justice?” CHE: “Yes”. | 43:19 |
| Village children | CAMPBELL: After three days here with the constant sound of warplanes overhead, Azima’s | 43:22 |
| Azima with friends | optimism is being tested. | 43:30 |
| Eric with Azima | “Do you think you’ll bring your family back straight away?” MOHAMED AZIMA: “Not now. Maybe I need to wait one month or two months away to be sure everything is quiet”. | 43:35 |
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| CAMPBELL: “This is your town”. MOHAMED AZIMA: “It’s my town”. | 43:43 |
| Checking out of hotel | CAMPBELL: His caution is soon justified. We check out of Timbuktu’s only working hotel, the Colombe, to begin the long journey back to Bamako. A few days later Islamists attacked the hotel – seven people were killed. | 43:46 |
| Bamako. Night | Back in Bamako, a thousand kilometres to the south, people are making a determined effort to return to normal. | 44:10 |
| Fashion parade | Sophie Sarin, the Swedish designer we met in Djenne, has brought down her new clothing collection for a fashion parade. It’s a slightly surreal sight in a country still at war, but to Sophie it’s just one more way to fight the Islamists. | 44:24 |
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| SOPHIE SARIN: “These cities in the north will have to start working as normally even if there are these unfortunate events with suicide bombings. It has to be, it has to be like that. You know otherwise there’s no future for Mali. You have to be defiant. The Malians have to be defiant about this, and I think they will be, I think they will be”. | 44:49 |
| Eric at fashion parade | CAMPBELL: And she wants the French to stay. | 45:07 |
| Sophie. Super: | SOPHIE SARIN: “You know it was an absolutely euphoric moment when they came in and they came in just at the right time. I mean we acclaimed them as heroes when they arrived that was fantastic”. CAMPBELL: “You’re not in a hurry for them to go?” SOPHIE SARIN: “No I want them to stay because obviously I’ve got the hotel. I want it to start running again like a normal, you know, a normal hotel and we need some military presence here. We need some strong military presence in the north”. | 45:12 |
| Baba Salah performing in club | Music | 45:38 |
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| CAMPBELL: Elsewhere in Bamako the music plays on. Baba Salah has helped bring West Africa’s vibrant melodies to the world. But when the Islamists threatened the capital they threatened his freedom to play here and to write songs like ‘Dangay’, an ode to all who’ve suffered in the north. | 45:56 |
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| BABA SALAH: “Dangay also means ‘dry your tears’. I chose this word to say to the people, don’t cry anymore, soon there will be a solution. The problem of people doing bad things, the problem of terrorism, all this will end very soon”. | 46:19 |
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| [lyrics] “Our country needs to be quiet. We all have to do it together”. | 46:50 |
| Baba Salah | “The world shouldn’t close its eyes and ears to the fact that people are experiencing violence, and dying - and nothing is being done”. | 47:02 |
| Baba Salah sings | [Singing] | 47:17 |
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| Reporter Eric Campbell
Camera David Martin
Editor Nicholas Brenner
Location fixer Karen Crabbs
Sydney producer Marianne Leitch
Old Timbuktu prints Courtesy Princeton University Library
Executive Producer Steve Taylor
| 47:40 |