Malians are defying Islamist threats and voting in presidential elections - the first polls since last year's jihadist uprising and France's military intervention.
Voters have a choice of 27 candidates in the first election since a military coup upended one of the region's most stable democracies as Islamist militants hijacked a separatist uprising to seize a vast swathe in the desert north of the country.
A total of 6.8 million people have registered to vote in the West African nation of nearly 15 million.
People queue to vote in a school being used as a polling station The president they elect is expected to usher in a new dawn of peace and stability in the conflict-scarred country.
The ballot opened at 8am local time (9am BST) under heavy security after one of the main Islamist armed groups in northern Mali said on Saturday it would "strike" polling stations.
"The polling stations and other voting places for what they are calling the elections will be targeted by mujahedeen strikes," the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) said in a statement carried by neighbouring Mauritania's ANI news agency.
Soldiers sit outside a polling station It did not specify what form the attacks would take but the group warned Malian Muslims to "stay away from the polls".
In a polling station at a school in the capital Bamako, hundreds of voters had been queuing for more than an hour to cast their ballots.
"We are tired of bad governance. I'd urge the candidates to accept the results of our vote," said 56-year-old machine operator Kalifa Traore.
A ballot paper showing all the presidential candidates The three-week election campaign ended on Friday. It played out without a major attack but continued violence in the north of the country has raised doubts over Mali's readiness to deliver a safe and credible election.
Critics at home and abroad have argued that Mali, under pressure from the international community, is rushing to the polls and risking a botched election that could do more harm than good.
But Louis Michel, the head of the European Union observation mission, sounded a note of optimism, saying conditions had been met for a credible first round.
A woman gets her finger marked with ink to cast her vote "I believe that these elections can take place in a context and in conditions that are acceptable and do not allow for a distortion or an abuse of the result," he said.
Much of the worry ahead of the polls has been focused on Kidal, occupied for five months by Tuareg separatists until a ceasefire accord allowed the Malian army earlier this month to provide security.
Clashes between Tuaregs and black Africans in the run-up to the election left four people dead.
A man places his ballot in the box at a polling station in Timbuktu And gunmen thought to be from the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) kidnapped five polling officials 200 kilometres (125 miles) north of Kidal.
Voting opened late in many parts of the town.
The ballot is the first since the military mutiny in March last year that toppled democratically elected president Amadou Toumani Toure.
The polls come after months of political turmoil The ensuing confusion helped the MNLA, MUJAO and other groups allied to al Qaeda to seize northern Mali.
Haidara Aichata Cisse, the only woman in the race, goes head-to-head with 26 men, including past premiers Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, Cheick Modibo Diarra, Modibo Sidibe and Soumana Sacko.
Keita is seen as the main frontrunner alongside Soumaila Cisse, a former chairman of the Commission of the West African Monetary Union.
Polls close at 6pm local time (7pm BST) and results are expected within five days.
A UN peacekeeping mission, which took control from an African mission at the beginning of the month, has allowed France to start withdrawing most of the 4,500 troops it sent to Mali in January to stop the Islamists from advancing towards Bamako.
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