Mali Gives 'Bigger and Better-Looking Camel' to Hollande after Locals Eat First Gift
Timbuktu residents asked to look after camel presented to French president dine out on it instead
Mali authorities will present another camel to French president Francois Hollande after the first one they gave him as a gift was eaten by local people in Timbuktu.
In what appears to have been a major diplomatic breach, the family charged with looking after the camel for Hollande instead slaughtered it for a tagine.
A government official in northern Mali said that the camel had been replaced with "a bigger and better-looking camel".
"The new camel will be sent to Paris. We are ashamed of what happened. It was a present that did not deserve this fate," he added.
During the first gift ceremony, Hollande joked about using "it as much as I can as a means of transport" ato get through Parisian traffic jams,
Hollande acted decisively against Islamist fighters who took over large swathes of Mali and imposed strict Shariah law.
A force comprising 2,000 African troops in partnership with French forces drove back the rebels. Some 200 British troops provided additional support.
The action was the spark for a deadly raid by Islamists on a secluded gas station in Algeria by militants, in which 39 people were killed after government forces mounted a counter attack to wrest back control of the station.
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