The governor of Mali's troubled Kidal made an official visit to his own region for the first time in more than two years Monday, underscoring the state's fragile efforts to reassert itself across vast swathes of northern territory.

Kidal's governor Koina Ag Ahmadou said his presence at a back-to-school event was a "strong symbol" of the state's willingness to reinstate a presence across territory dominated by former rebels and threatened by jihadists.

"I presided over the back to school ceremony myself in a class (flying) the national flag. It's a good sign for the whole of Mali," Ag Ahmadou told AFP.

But the visit required the green light of the former rebels of the Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA), the Tuareg group that runs Kidal and whose members rose up against the government in 2012 before signing a peace deal last year.

Kidal has been rocked by deadly fighting for control between armed groups which were party to the peace deal.

The CMA said the decision to allow the visit "showed its willingness to help with the return of an administrative presence in conformity with the peace accord" in a statement last week.

The governor was appointed in March but has since been unable to confirm when he would take up his position full-time in the region.

A UN secretary-general report said as recently as October there was "no government presence in the regions of Kidal and Taoudenni."

State services have been absent since May 2014 when a visit by former prime minister Moussa Mara ended in him being chased from Kidal as several troops were killed in clashes with former rebels, meaning the military also deserted the area.

Last year protests prevented a minister from attending a similar ceremony or any national flags being displayed.

The back-to-school event will likely be largely symbolic for the area's pupils, many of whom cannot attend school for security reasons.

In December 2015, one in six schools in northern Mali was closed, according to UNICEF figures, rising to 79 percent in Kidal.

The figures for this year's intake are not yet available but around 380,000 children aged 7-15 missed school last year in northern Mali, some for the second or third year running.

Tuareg-led rebels who have spearheaded insurrections against the government for decades joined forces with jihadists in 2012 to overrun key northern cities.

They were quickly sidelined by the Al-Qaeda-linked groups, who were then routed by an ongoing international military intervention launched in January 2013.

Large tracts of the sub-Saharan country are still not controlled by Malian and foreign troops.