History of Timbuktu returning from a stay in the capital of the Mali Empire. Timbuktu was still relatively unimportant and Battuta quickly moved on to Gao. At the time both Timbuktu and Gao formed part of the Mali Empire. A century and a half later, in around 1510, Leo Africanus visited Timbuktu. He gave a description of the town in his "Descrittione dell'Africa" which was published in 1550. The original Italian was translated into a number of other languages and the book became widely known in Europe. The earliest surviving local documents are the 17th century chronicles, al-Sadi's "Tarikh al-Sudan" and Ibn al-Mukhtar's
Timbuktu festival at Anderamboukané. One of these tourists was subsequently murdered. As a result of this and various other incidents a number of states including France, Britain and the US, began advising their citizens to avoid travelling far from Bamako. The number of tourists visiting Timbuktu dropped precipitously from around 6000 in 2009 to only 492 in the first four months of 2011. Because of the security concerns, the Malian government moved the 2010 Festival in the Desert from Essakane to the outskirts of Timbuktu. In November 2011, gunmen attacked tourists staying at a hotel in Timbuktu, killing one of them