Last week, the Malian government started returning the famous Timbuktu’s manuscripts home to Timbuktu after over 10 years away. As you remember, we prayed for the manuscripts to be kept safe, as Timbuktu was under Attacks by ‘Muslim fundamentalists’, Timbuktu Manuscripts now Available Online. You know the AES is working hard, when it is safe for the Timbuktu manuscripts to return home after over 10 years away! This is a testimony to the hard work of the Malian troops, its people, and its government. The Malian people have shown that an African country can protect itself, recover its territory, and free its own people. Yes… there has been strong collaborations with Russia, and their neighboring brothers of Burkina Faso and Niger, and the formation of the Alliance of the Etats du Sahel (AES). Mali did what France and all its allies could not do with their multiple operations, operation Barkhane, Operation Serval, Task Force Takuba, etc, … wait they were not really there to free the country from terrorism, but rather to finance/protect terrorism, divide the country, so as to be free to do their business. We are proud of Mali, and pray that these manuscripts remain safe as they have been for centuries, in the hands of their very own people.

Excerpts below are from Africanews.

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The Malian military government on Monday started returning home the historic manuscripts of Timbuktu, which were spirited out of their fabled northern city when it was occupied by al-Qaida-linked militants more than a decade ago.

Islamic radicals destroyed more than 4,000 manuscripts, some dating back to the 13th century, after they seized Timbuktu in 2012, according to the findings of a United Nations expert mission. They also destroyed nine mausoleums and a mosque’s door — all but one of the buildings on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

The majority of the documents dating back to the 13th century — more than 27,000 — were saved by the devotion of the Timbuktu library’s Malian custodians, who carried them out of the occupied city in rice sacks, on donkey carts, by motorcycle, by boat and four-wheel drive vehicles.

… About 706 kilometers (439 miles) from Bamako, Timbuktu sits on the edge of the Sahara desert and has a dry climate. For years, the local municipal and religious authorities have asked for the return of the manuscripts. Diahara Touré, Timbuktu’s deputy mayor, said the famous documents are important to the local people as they “reflect our civilization and spiritual and intellectual heritage.”

… In February, the military government made a commitment to return the manuscripts, according to Bouréma Kansaye, the Malian Minister of Higher Education. He described them as as a “legacy that bears witness to the intellectual greatness and crossroads of civilization” of the city of Timbuktu — “a bridge between the past and the future.”

“We now have a responsibility to protect, digitize, study, and promote these treasures so that they continue to enlighten Mali, Africa, and the world,” Kansaye said during Monday’s return ceremony.

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