Tarkint is a village and commune in the Cercle of Bourem in the

Gao Region Gao ( Bambara: ߜߊߏ ߘߌߣߋߖߊ tr. Gao Dineja) is a region in northeastern Mali. The capital city is Gao. Geography The region is bordered to the north by Kidal Region, to the west by Tombouctou Region and Taoudénit Region, to the east b ...

of north-eastern

Mali Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is the List of African countries by area, eighth-largest country in Africa, with an area of over . The country is bordered to the north by Algeria, to the east b ...

. The village is northeast of

Bourem Bourem is a commune and small town in the Gao Region of northeastern Mali. The town sits on the left bank of the River Niger. It was the site of an attack by the Permanent Strategic Framework for Peace, Security, and Development (CSP-PSD) on ...

and from

Gao Gao (or Gawgaw/Kawkaw) is a city in Mali and the capital of the Gao Region. The city is located on the River Niger, east-southeast of Timbuktu on the left bank at the junction with the Tilemsi valley. For much of its history Gao was an imp ...

. Tarkint extends for 23,000 km² and includes part of the Tilemsi Valley. In the 2009 census Tarkint had a population of 19,082.

Cocaine Air

The sandblown village became notorious in 2009, when the burnt-out wreckage of an old

Boeing 727 The Boeing 727 is an American Narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body airliner that was developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. After the heavier Boeing 707, 707 quad-jet was introduced in 1958, Boeing addressed the demand for shorter ...

airliner was found abandoned in the desert, 85 miles north of Gao, at the scene of the so-called "Cocaine Air" incident. It is believed that the aircraft had been transporting up to 10 tons of

cocaine Cocaine is a tropane alkaloid and central nervous system stimulant, derived primarily from the leaves of two South American coca plants, ''Erythroxylum coca'' and ''Erythroxylum novogranatense, E. novogranatense'', which are cultivated a ...

.''Revealed: how Saharan caravans of cocaine help to fund al-Qaeda in terrorists' North African domain''
telegraph.co.uk. From 26 January 2013

References

Communes of Gao Region Communities on the Niger River {{Gao-geo-stub