Malian government officials were headed Tuesday to the burnt-down village of Sobane in central Mali, where nearly 100 people were killed in the latest gruesome attack to strike the volatile region.
Sunday’s attack targeted an ethnic Dogon village in the central Mopti region, where Dogon hunters and members of the largely nomadic Fulani ethnic group have repeatedly clashed in recent months.
Unknown assailants set fire to homes and shot villagers as they sought to escape the flames, the mayor of the Sangha municipality, which comprises Sobane, told FRANCE 24’s correspondent in Bamako, Christelle Pire.
At least 95 people were killed and a further 19 are still missing, according to a provisional toll released by local officials and confirmed by the UN mission in Mali, MINUSMA.
Mali’s Prime Minister Boubou Cissé was due to the visit the village of Sobane on Tuesday, accompanied by the minister of defence and local government officials.
President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who cut short an official trip to Switzerland to respond to the attack, was expected to join them after returning to Mali.
"This country cannot be led by a cycle of revenge and vendetta," Keita told ORTM public television before leaving Switzerland.
He called on Malians to come together to "allow our nation to survive, because this is a question of survival".
‘No one was spared’
It was not immediately clear who carried out Sunday’s massacre, but analysts said it bore the hallmarks of the tit-for-tat ethnic attacks that have claimed hundreds of lives in the region.
"Armed men, suspected to be terrorists, launched a murderous attack on this peaceful village," Mali’s government said in a statement.
A survivor who gave his name as Amadou Togo told AFP that "about 50 heavily armed men arrived on motorbikes and pickups".
He added: "They first surrounded the village and then attacked – anyone who tried to escape was killed. Some people had their throats cut or were disembowelled, grain stores and cattle were torched. No one was spared – women, children, elderly people."
The mayor of Sangha said 108 of the village’s estimated 300 inhabitants fled the attack and later returned. Survivors were temporarily sheltered in a school in the nearby village of Koundou, he told FRANCE 24’s Pire.
March massacre
Members of the Dogon and Fulani groups often clash over access to land and water. The Dogon also accuse Fulanis of having ties to local jihadist groups, while Fulanis claim that Mali’s army has armed Dogon hunters to attack them.
Earlier this year in March, the massacre of more than 150 Fulani villagers, including women and children, prompted Mali’s government to sack senior military officials and dissolve a militia composed of Dogon hunters.
Weeks later, the entire government resigned over its failure to disarm militias and beat back Islamist militants, who continue to stage attacks six years after France helped Malian forces stave off a jihadist insurgency in the country's restive north.
"It's a shock, a tragedy," MINUSMA chief Mahamat Saleh Annadif said of the latest bloodletting, noting that it came at a time "when we are discussing the renewal of the [MINUSMA] mandate".
There are currently some 14,700 troops and police deployed in Mali, which ranks as the most dangerous UN mission, with 125 peacekeepers killed in attacks since its deployment in 2013. A decision on renewing the force's mandate is expected by June 27.
Speaking at the UN headquarters in New York, Annadif voiced regret that the Malian authorities had not been present enough in the area to prevent such violence.
Just a week earlier, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres had warned of a "high risk" of atrocities and called on the government to strengthen its response to extremist groups.
On Monday, Guterres's spokesman said the secretary general was "outraged" by the massacre and that he called "on the Malian authorities to investigate this tragedy and to bring the perpetrators to justice".
