Karima Bennoune

Twenty years ago, on 14 February 1994, the Armed Islamic Group sent a Valentine’s Day message of hate to Algerian performing artists and the youth who loved them by gunning down Aziz Smati, beloved producer of the local equivalent of MTV.

Before the recent French intervention in Mali began, 412,000 people had already left their homes in the country’s north, fleeing torture, summary executions, recruitment of child soldiers and sexual violence against women at the hands of fundamentalist militants.