Nobody really knows who unleashed the 15-minute inferno of rockets, bullets and flames on hundreds of passengers, and there is no guarantee that the truth will ever be established.
Regular passengers of the "Tombouctou", a ferry whose route runs along the Niger River in northern Mali, are accustomed to hearing gunfire from the riverbank during their journeys. The blasts that forced passengers to hit the deck that day heralded a deluge of gunfire.
The attack on September 7 destroyed dozens of lives and left the ferry - which provided a regular link between Malian towns on the banks of the river Niger across hundreds of kilometres of semi-desert - a burnt-out wreck