Ethnic violence had claimed the lives of forty people including nine soldiers in the deeply troubled region of Central Mali, authorities said Friday. Central Mali is haunted by tit-for-tat violence, with ethnic militiamen clashing having earned the aura of Jihad in recent times. Each group is waging Jihad against the other, with considerable bloodshed among the tribes.
Thirty-one people were killed in an attack overnight in Ogossagou, a village mainly inhabited by Fulani people where 160 died last March in a massacre blamed on Dogon militiamen, the government said, raising the death toll. About 30 gunmen carried out the new attack, village chief Aly Ousmane Barry told AFP.
“Huts and crops were set alight, livestock was burned or taken away,” he added, vowing that the government would find the perpetrators. The attack is also blamed on Dogon hunters’ group which is not clarified. A local government official, who requested anonymity, had earlier said that 28 people were missing.
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