Attack Kills 21 In Central Mali Ethnic Flashpoint

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

Bamako, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Feb, 2020 ) :Twenty-one people were killed in an attack overnight on a village in central Mali, the government 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.

Malian government spokesman Yaya Sangare said that 21 people had been killed in the attack, according to a provisional tally, and that others were missing.

"Huts and crops were set alight, livestock was burned or taken away," he added, vowing that the government would find the perpetrators.

A local government official, who requested anonymity, said that 28 people were missing.

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

The official and village chief Aly Ousmane Barry both said the attackers moved in several hours after government troops had pulled out of the area.

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.