Central Mali attack leaves 26 people dead

Twenty-six people were killed in an attack on a village in central Mali, officials said on Saturday, in the latest violence to hit the West African nation.  

The attack targeted a Fulani village named Binedama in the volatile Mopti region on Friday, said Aly Barry, an official from Tabital Pulaaku, a Fulani association in Mali.  

Two other local officials confirmed the attack and the death toll.

A local government official in Koro, a subdivision of the Mopti region, said that the attack on Binedama occurred on Friday afternoon. 

Two women, and a nine-year-old girl, were killed in the attack, he said.

Hunter-herder massacres 

Mali has been struggling to quell a revolt that first broke out in north in 2012, before spreading to the centre, as well as neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.

Thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed in the conflict, while many more have been forced to flee their homes. 

Central Mali – an ethnic mosaic – has become one of the flashpoints of conflict in the country, with regular militant attacks on military targets and occasional intercommunal fighting.

The pastoralist Fulani people are often accused of being close to groups with links to Al Qaeda and Daesh, a perception which has led to tit-for-tit massacres between them and other ethnic groups, including Dogon hunters.

Tit-for-tat attacks in central Mali flared after Fulani people, also called Peul, became associated with militants.

Led by a firebrand preacher Amadou Koufa, a militia called the Katiba Macina recruited members from among the Fulani and has been accused of ethnically-motivated attacks.

Other ethnic groups such as the Bambara or the Dogon began to form groups that have been accused of massacres.

Increasing insecurity

Friday's attack also comes at a time of increasing insecurity in Mali.

Prominent opposition figure Soumaila Cisse was kidnapped in central Mali on March 25 while campaigning for a parliamentary election. 

The region has also seen several massacres recently, including a militant attack on rural villages which left 12 people dead in April.