The Malian government says it has ordered an investigation into whether soldiers killed dozens of people during attacks on two villages last week.
Armed men dressed in military fatigues raided the village of Binedama on Friday, killing 29 people including women and children, and burning down houses, according to officials. Two days earlier, attackers had killed 14 people in the village of Niangassadiou, the government said in a statement. […]
Both villages are in Mopti, a volatile region in the centre of the country that has seen many attacks and tit-for-tat ethnic killings over the past few years. In both cases, community leaders said attackers targeted members of the Fulani group – semi-nomadic herders who have been accused by rival farming communities of supporting local armed groups, making them targets of violence from ethnic vigilante militias and sometimes government forces. […]
On Friday, tens of thousands of people took to the streets of the capital, Bamako, to demand the resignation of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who was re-elected in 2018 for a second five-year term on a promise to bring peace in a country torn by armed groups and worsening violence.
Keita is struggling to maintain support amid a rapidly deteriorating security situation that has claimed thousands of lives, forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes and devastated the economy.َ Läs artikel