Mali: more than 100 killed in the attack on a Peul village

The attack was perpetrated by a group of traditional hunters, who set fire to the huts of a Fulani village.

Saturday's attack on a Fulani village in central Mali by suspected members of traditional dogon hunter groups has exceeded 100 dead, according to a new assessment by local authorities, confirmed by a security source and an association. A previous assessment of this attack in the village of Ogossagou-Peul, in the zone of Bankass, near the border with Burkina Faso, reported at least fifty deaths.

A mission composed of a detachment of the Malian army and local authorities arrived on the scene in the afternoon, according to a security source who provided a report of "at least 105 civilian deaths". The Kisal Pastoralist Rights Association, which previously reported "abuses against the Peul community by armed men dressed as hunters in the Bankass circle," announced a record of "at least 115 Peuls killed in Ogossagou / Bankass ". According to witnesses, the village huts were burned.

Clashes that have multiplied for several months. Since the emergence four years ago in central Mali of the jihadist group of preacher Amadou Koufa, recruiting primarily among the Fulani, traditionally breeders, the clashes between the community and the Bambara and Dogon ethnic groups, mainly practicing agriculture, are multiplying. , who created their own "self-defense groups". The violence claimed the lives of more than 500 civilians in 2018, according to the UN.

The Fulani denounce abuses by groups of hunters, tolerated or even encouraged according to them in the name of the fight against jihadists, by the authorities or the army, what the government denies. The attack comes six days after a jihadist attack in Dioura, in the same region but much farther north, against a camp in the Malian army, which has lost 26 men, according to a latest military report.