UA new massacre took place in several villages in the circle of Bankass, in central Mali. More than 130 civilians were killed over the weekend in attacks attributed by the government to al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadists. This is the latest massacre to mourn the Sahel, which is faced with almost daily violence.
A still provisional assessment
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 the save who can, ”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 even higher than that of 132 dead made public by the government, released on Monday afternoon from the silence observed when the alarming information proliferated since the weekend on social networks. Nouhoum Togo told AFP that the area had been the scene two weeks ago of army operations which had resulted in clashes with jihadists. The latter would have returned to several dozen on motorcycles, Friday according to him, to take revenge against the populations, he said.
“They arrived and told people: you are not Muslims in the Fulani language, so they took the men away, a hundred people left with them. Two kilometers away, they shot people systematically,” he said. “Even today, we continued to pick up the bodies in the surrounding towns of Diallassagou,” he added.
Katiba Macina accused
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 separatist 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 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 (North). Last Wednesday, an armed group reported the death of 22 people in the Ménaka region. In northern Burkina Faso, 86 people died in June in Seytenga.
