20 Killed At Ethnic Flarepoint In Central Mali

Twenty people were killed in an attack overnight on a village in central Mali, local officials said Friday, in an apparent spate of ethnic violence in the deeply troubled region

Bamako, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Feb, 2020 ) :Twenty people were killed in an attack overnight on a village in central Mali, local officials said Friday, in an apparent spate of ethnic violence in the deeply troubled region.

The attack occurred in Ogossagou, a village mainly inhabited by Fulani people where 160 died last March 23 in a massacre blamed on Dogon militiamen.

About 30 gunmen carried out the new attack, village chief Aly Ousmane Barry told AFP.

"I counted the numbers while soldiers and the medical services were there," he said.

"We have 20 dead. Some of them have been burned." A local government official, who requested anonymity, confirmed the death toll of 20 and said 28 were missing.

He blamed the attack on a traditional Dogon hunters' group -- an assertion that could be not be verified independently.

Both sources said the attackers moved in several hours after government troops had pulled out of the area.

Local people said that the village's food stocks had been destroyed and cattle stolen.

Central Mali became gripped by ethnic violence after a jihadist revolt broke out in the north of the country in 2012.

The insurgency has claimed thousands of lives and spread to neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso.

Tit-for-tat attacks in central Mali flared after Fulani people, also called Peul, became associated with jihadists.

Led by a firebrand Islamic preacher Amadou Koufa, a militia called the Katiba Macina recruited members from among the Fulani and became accused of ethnically-motivated attacks.

Other ethnic groups such as the Bambara or the Dogon began to form self-defence groups that in turn became accused of reprisal massacres.

In addition to the latest attack at Ogossagou, 14 Fulani were killed in central Mali in January.

Around 75 Dogons were killed in the villages of Sobane Da, Gangafani and Yoro in June last year, in an attack blamed on Fulani militants.