Over 130 Malian civilians killed by suspected jihadists

Mali has been rocked since 2012 by an insurgency by groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group

Suspected jihadists massacred more than 130 civilians over the weekend in neighboring central Mali towns, the latest mass killings in the Sahel region.

Officials reported scenes of systematic killings by armed men in Diallassagou and two surrounding towns in the Bankass circle, a longtime hotbed of Sahelian violence.

“They have also been burning huts, houses, and stealing cattle — it’s really a free-for-all,” said an official who for security reasons spoke on condition of anonymity.

He and another official, who like him had fled his village, said the death toll was still being counted on June 20.

Nouhoum Togo, head of a party in Bankass, the main town in the area, said the toll was even higher than the 132 announced by the government, which has blamed Al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadists for the killings.

The national authorities broke their silence on June 20 afternoon after alarming reports proliferated on social networks over the weekend.

“They arrived and told the people ‘You are not Muslims’ in Fulani, then took the men away, and a hundred people went with them. Some two kilometers away, they systematically shot people”

Togo told AFP that army operations in the area two weeks ago had led to clashes with jihadists. On June 17, the jihadists returned on several dozen motorbikes to take revenge on the population, he added.

“They arrived and told the people ‘You are not Muslims’ in Fulani, then took the men away, and a hundred people went with them,” he said. “Some two kilometers away, they systematically shot people.”

He said bodies continued to be collected in areas around Diallassagou.

The government blamed the attack on Fulani religious leader Amadou Koufa’s armed group, the Macina Katiba.

Central Mali has been plagued by violence since the Al-Qaeda-affiliated organisation emerged in 2015.

A large part of the area is beyond state control and is prone to violence by self-defense militias and inter-community reprisals.

Since 2012, Mali has been rocked by an insurgency by groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.

Violence that began in the north has since spread to the center and neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger. Civilians are often subjected to reprisals by jihadists who accuse them of collaborating with the enemy.

Some areas of the country, especially in the center, have fallen under the jihadists’ control.

The number of civilians killed in attacks attributed to extremist groups has almost doubled since 2020 in the central Sahel, a coalition of West African NGOs said in a report

The military ousted the civilian government in 2020 over its inability to halt the violence and has said the restoration of security is its priority.

But civilians still often find themselves caught in the crossfire between armed groups, including those affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

Nearly 600 civilians were killed in Mali in 2021 in violence blamed mainly on jihadists but also on self-defense militias and armed forces, according to a UN document published in March.

The UN has expressed alarm in Security Council documents at the deteriorating security situation in central Mali, as well as in the north and in the area along the borders of Burkina Faso and Niger.

Not far from those borders on June 18, around 20 civilians were killed in the northern region of Gao — about 500 kilometers west of Bankass.

A UN spokesperson condemned “in the strongest terms the attacks perpetrated … near Goa and near Bankass”.

Members of the UN Security Council “expressed their deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims and to the transitional government of Mali,” the UN statement said.

The number of civilians killed in attacks attributed to extremist groups has almost doubled since 2020 in the central Sahel, a coalition of West African NGOs said in a report.

On June 15, an armed group reported the deaths of 22 people in the Menaka region, right by Niger’s western border.

In northern Burkina Faso, 86 people were killed in June in Seytenga.

Mali’s junta leader Colonel Assimi Goita decreed three days of national mourning for the latest killings.

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