Militia withdraws from contested northern Mali town

The United Nations mission in Mali says a government-allied militia has left a northern town it occupied last month following clashes with Tuareg separatists.
In a statement on Tuesday evening, the UN mission said elements of the Platform militia coalition had withdrawn from Anefis two weeks after they first said they would. But the mission said it was concerned that some Platform elements had been observed moving even farther north toward Aguel’hoc, another separatist stronghold.
The presence of the militia in Anefis was seen as a threat to a June peace accord, and the UN called for militia fighters to return to the positions they occupied when the peace deal was signed.
Northern Mali fell to Tuareg separatists and then al-Qaeda-linked Islamic extremists in 2012, triggering a French-led military intervention.