More than 130 civilians were killed over the weekend in central Mali in attacks attributed by the government to jihadists affiliated with Al-Qaeda, the latest massacre to date to mourn the Sahel.
Local elected officials have reported scenes of systematic massacres perpetrated by armed men in Diallassagou and in two surrounding localities in the circle of Bankass, in an area which has been one of the main centers of violence to bloody the Sahel for years.
They also burn huts, houses, and steal cattle. It’s really life saving, said an elected official reached by telephone and speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. This elected official and another, who like him fled his village, indicated that the count of the dead continued on Monday.
Nouhoum Togo, an elected official from Bankass, the main locality in the sector, reported a number of victims which would be even higher than that made public. On Monday, the government finally revealed the death toll at 132, after alarming reports had proliferated on social media since the weekend.
The area had been the scene, two weeks ago, of army operations which had given rise to clashes with the jihadists, said Nouhoum Togo. The latter would have returned, with several dozen motorcycles, on Friday according to him, to take revenge against the populations, he said.
” They arrived and […] they took the men away. A hundred people left with them. Two kilometers away, they shot people systematically. Today again, we continued to collect the bodies in the surrounding communes of Diallassagou “
The government accused the Katiba Macina of Fulani preacher Amadou Kouffa.
Since the appearance in 2015 of this organization affiliated with Al-Qaeda in central Mali, the region has been subjected to jihadist abuses, the actions of self-defense militias and inter-community reprisals. Much of the area is beyond the control of the central state.
The whole of Mali has been plunged into a deep security, political and humanitarian crisis since the outbreak of independence and jihadist insurgencies in 2012. The jihadist spread has spread to the center and neighboring countries: Burkina Faso and Niger.
Civilians are subject to reprisals from jihadists who accuse them of siding with the enemy. In certain areas, more and more extensive in the center, passed under the influence of the jihadists, the latter vigorously apply their social vision.
Civilians also often find themselves caught in the crossfire of clashes between rival armed groups, including those affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State organization.
The UN is concerned
The number of civilians killed in attacks attributed to extremist groups has almost doubled since 2020 in the central Sahel, says a coalition of West African NGOs in a report published Thursday.
A UN document released in March said nearly 600 civilians had been killed in Mali in 2021 in violence blamed mainly on jihadist groups, but also on self-defense militias and the armed forces.
The UN is alarmed in documents intended for the Security Council of the deterioration of the security situation in central Mali, but also in the north and in the so-called three-border zone on the borders of Burkina Faso and Niger.
Twenty civilians were killed on Saturday in the Gao region. Last Wednesday, an armed group reported the death of 22 people in the Ménaka region.
In northern Burkina Faso, in Seytenga, 86 people died in June.
France Media Agency
Source: Radio-Canada
