Ménaka

Ménaka is a town and urban commune in Ménaka Cercle and Ménaka Region in eastern Mali, and it is the seat and largest town of both. It stands amid the rocky outcrops of the Ader Douchi hills and is served by Ménaka Airport. The area was a centre of the Malian rising of Ag El Insar Firhoun in the 1916 Tuareg Rebellion and a government garrison town during the Tuareg rebellions of 1961 to 1964, 1990 to 1995 and 2007 to 2009. A short rising by former rebels integrated into the Malian Army put the military post under siege in 2006, and the town was captured by the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad in January 2012. In November 2009 a French citizen, Pierre Camatte, was taken hostage from a hotel in the town and freed about six weeks later in a prisoner swap. Human rights organisations also pointed to Ménaka in 2008 as one of several towns where informal slavery relations persist between noble and low caste Tuareg.