(10 May 2017) LEADIN:
The town of Konna is still recovering after it was captured by Islamic militants more than four years ago.
The rebels took large parts of northern Mali over 2012 before the French military intervened in January 2013 after the extremists took the town.
STORYLINE:
The remnants of battle are still here.
A jihadi pickup truck destroyed by an air strike lies by the side of the road outside Konna.
Islamic extremists battled the Malian army to capture this town in 2013.
It triggered a French military intervention and the scars of fighting can still be seen.
Village chief Ibrahima Kampo walks past structures destroyed in the fighting.
He remembers the Malian army used various buildings as bases before they were driven out of the town by groups linked to al-Qaida.
The French then targeted the places where the militants had set up their headquarters.
"There are hangers over there and that is where they (French) bombarded and they also bombarded the sub-prefecture (government office)," he says.
The militants had seized large parts of northern Mali before they took Konna as they pushed south.
But the French intervention proved decisive in curtailing their advance.
Kampo points out a crater caused by a French air strike.
But there were casualties - as well as Malian troops, one French soldier and at least eleven civilians were killed in Konna.
And the violence has had an economic impact on this town too.
Local woman Aissata Dia is visited by a member of a local NGO.
The organisation has helped her get back on her feet after the violence.
She says she "lost everything" over the two days battle raged.
The NGO has provided her psychological support and money to help her raise livestock.
But village chief Kampo says some people didn't want to work in the fields anymore because they believe jihadists laid mines there. He says there have also been food shortages.
Just 45 miles (70 kilometres) south is Mopti, a strategic port city along the Niger River.
This is where the rebels would likely had headed next if they had not been thwarted at Konna.
Pinasses leave the river bank and head out on the water.
Soumana Tienta, from the NGO SOS Sahel Mali, says a lot of infrastructure in the region was damaged and destroyed and that the economy has been impacted.
But his organisation is working with local people to get businesses running again.
SOS Sahel Mali has pledged funding for 420 micro projects.
"Conventions are signed and it just remains to unlock the money," he says.
"People have hope and believe that these actions will revive the economy".
People toil in the fields around Konna and go about their business in the town's streets.
But the effects of the extremists' campaign are still being felt years later.
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