The town is set amidst the rocky outcrops of the Ader Douchi hills, and is served by Ménaka Airport.

Most recently, Ménaka was put under siege and the military post sacked by former rebels who had been integrated into the Malian Army in a short term rising in May–July 2006.

[2] On 17 January 2012, Ménaka was captured by the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), a Tuareg rebel group.

[3] On 19 November they lost their control to the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

[5] Malian and international Human Rights organisations pointed to Ménaka in 2008, as one of several towns in the Gao Region in which informal slavery relations persist between noble caste Tuareg pastoralists and thousands of sedentary low caste Bellah Tuareg.