Soldiers also evacuated the town's military installation, which was attacked by jihadists on Tuesday, the sources said.
For more than a decade, Mali has faced violence from fighters linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group, as well as from separatist movements and criminal gangs.
No information was immediately available on the toll of the Farabougou attack.
"Civilians are fleeing the town and surrounding villages," a local official told AFP, requesting anonymity for security reasons.
"Several hundred people continue to flee. The jihadists control the town. They even held Friday prayers in Farabougou," the person added.
A military source confirmed that the army was no longer in the town on Saturday.
"We are not in Farabougou today but this is a strategic decision. We are preparing to return," they said.
A local official said that the town had emptied out after the attack.
The Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), linked to Al-Qaeda, claimed to have carried out the attack in Farabougou, as well as in the southwestern town of Kassela, some 60 kilometres from the capital Bamako.
Since seizing power, Mali's military government has turned its back on France, arguing that the country should be free of its former colonial ruler.
It has since forged ties with Russia, and mercenaries from the paramilitary Wagner group and its successor Africa Corps are now helping the Malian army fight jihadists and other internal adversaries.
Guinea's junta suspends three main political parties
Conakry (AFP) Aug 23, 2025 -
Guinea's junta has suspended three main political parties -- including that of former president Alpha Conde -- for three months, ahead of an electoral campaign for a rewrite of the constitution, according to an order seen by AFP on Saturday.
The move came as the west African nation readied for protests called by the main parties and civil society groups from September 5 to condemn what they see as a power grab by the head of the junta, General Mamadi Doumbouya.
The opposition has condemned plans for a September 21 referendum on revising the constitution -- a vote organised by Doumbouya, who took power in 2021 when a coup toppled Conde, who had been president for 10 years.
Doumbouya's military-run government has banned all demonstrations since 2022, and has arrested, prosecuted or pushed into exile several opposition leaders.
As well as Conde's Rally of the Guinean People, the new order suspends the Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea, led by former prime minister Cellou Dalein Diallo, and the Party of Renewal and Progress.
"These parties have not fulfilled the obligations required of them," the order stated.
It did not detail what the unfulfilled obligations were, but set a three-month deadline for the parties to correct them or face additional sanctions.
In a separate order read on state television late Friday, the junta also declared that the start of the election campaign period for the constitutional referendum had been pushed back a week, to August 31.
- Opposition crackdown -
The parties' suspension comes after Guinea's military leaders said in January the political arena needs to be "sanitised".
In March, the junta announced the suspension of 28 political parties and the dissolution of 27 others, saying they had failed to meet the requirement to provide bank account details and hold a regular congress.
Conde's party was among those suspended then, but was later allowed to resume activity.
Guinea's junta has faced condemnation from international rights groups that accuse it of cracking down on political dissent and independent media.
The draft constitution, presented to the junta leader in June, opens the way to a return to civilian rule.
However, it does not make clear whether Doumbouya could stand as a candidate in the next presidential election.
A "transition charter" drawn up by the junta shortly after the coup had stipulated that none of its leaders, government members of heads of institutions would be able to stand in elections.
The adoption of a new constitution could do away with that restriction, in a country that has spent decades ruled by dictatorial governments.
Burundi arrests general linked to 2015 repression: sources
Nairobi (AFP) Aug 22, 2025 -
Burundi security sources on Friday announced the arrest of a top general who civil society groups said played a key role in the deaths and torture of government opponents in a 2015 crisis in the east African nation.
But Major General Bertin Gahungu was detained at his office in Bujumbura for undermining internal security and insulting President Evariste Ndayishimiye rather than on human rights charges, a senior security officer told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Gahungu is a product of the ruling National Council for the Defence of Democracy-Forces for the Defence of Democracy (CNDD-FDD) and a security source said he headed the intelligence service when opposition groups challenged Pierre Nkurunziza's bid for a third presidential term in 2015.
The opposition was violently put down with at least 1,200 people killed and 400,000 people forced to flee between 2015 and 2017. The repression was marked by summary executions, disappearances, torture and sexual violence, according to rights groups.
"His name has been cited as being among the main masterminds of the terror," said Armel Niyongere, head of the ACAT-Burundi rights group.
Niyongere said that Gahungu had been accused of torture and responsibility for disappearances and extrajudicial executions.
Pacifique Nininahazwe, a leading exiled civil society figure, said on X that Gahungu was being detained at the security headquarters where "he mowed down so many of our people" and "tortured Esdras Ndikumanae," a journalist who at the time worked for AFP and Radio France Internationale.
The senior security officer said that Gahungu had repeatedly questioned the competency of Ndayishimiye, who became president in 2020 after the death of Nkurunziza.
Under Ndayisimiye, Burundi has switched between signs of seeking to open up and toughening its control of the country including through attacks on human rights, according to non-government groups and UN experts.
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