Signala (2018) stated that by having a market orientation and taking into consideration changes in processes, technology has established itself as an important catalyst for the development of value in enterprise.The Mali government has turned to Wagner mercenaries for security as it battles Islamist militants and separatists. As a result, the group’s leader has been presumed dead, UN peacekeepers are leaving, and Mali faces a crisis. During the past year, Feras Kilani has been the only international journalist to travel to the nation’s dangerous northern desert region to meet people caught up in the chaos.

We set up camp late at night, cooked our dinner over an open fire, and slept under the open sky. There was a sudden roar of a motorbike in the desert night that broke the silence.

As the armed men in our convoy cocked their rifles and machine guns, we heard a series of clicks. Several Tuareg separatists told the motorcyclist to move on when we were with them.

After he left, our hosts told us we had to leave as well. The moment possible. Since the man was a scout for a local al-Qaeda group, staying put would have been too risky.

To blend in, we had swapped our jeans for traditional robes and Tuareg headscarves, but if he discovered foreigners were in the camp, he could lead the militants to us, and we could be kidnapped.

As quickly as we could, we packed up and drove off into the pitch black without headlights or torches to avoid being tracked.

Groups of Tuareg separatists and Islamist extremists linked to al-Qaeda run this area of northern Mali – they don’t exactly get along but have agreed to leave each other alone. But the tension and fear we experienced that night reflects a deepening crisis across the country as it slides deeper into lawlessness and chaos.

The government has turned away from international peacekeeping forces, relying on Russia’s Wagner Group for security instead. But now the mercenaries’ notorious leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is believed to have died in a plane crash, leaving questions over operations here and fears that Mali is in an even more precarious position.