File photo from Mali for representational purposes only
Bamako: A trade union leader who criticised the authorities in junta-led Mali has been missing for three days, his family said on Monday.
Since the military seized power in back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021, several dissidents have been abducted and held incommunicado before being brought before a court or eventually released.
Commander Daouda Konate, the head of the prison guards' union, "was abducted upon leaving the mosque on Friday", a relative said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
A security official, also speaking anonymously due to their profession, said Konate was being held at the premises of the intelligence services.
Konate had denounced the conditions and understaffing in Malian prisons and accused Justice Minister Mahamadou Kassogue of "knowing nothing" about the prison system, in a video recently published on social media.
The democratic workers' confederation of Mali (CDTM), to which Konate's union belongs, expressed "deep concern" at his disappearance "in as yet unexplained circumstances".
In a statement published Saturday, the CDTM urged authorities to "mobilise all necessary means" to find him.
The west African state is battling a political, security and economic crisis and has been ravaged by jihadist violence since 2012. It also faces a separatist insurgency in the volatile desert north.
