Fri 14 June 2019:
BAMAKO (Reuters) – President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita of Mali on Thursday visited the site of an ethnic massacre in central Mali in which gunmen killed dozens of people, vowing once again to crack down on spiraling insecurity.
Attackers believed to belong to the Fulani ethnic group raided the ethnic Dogon village of Sobane Da on Sunday and Monday, killing 35 people, according to the government, although a local authority maintains the real figure is 95 deaths. Neither has produced evidence for these tolls.
Keita cut short a trip to Switzerland on Wednesday to return to Mali and handle the fallout from the attack, the latest in a series of retaliatory strikes by Dogon hunters and Fulani herders that have killed hundreds of civilians this year.
“The state will proceed immediately to disarm anyone who illegally owns a firearm and those who refuse to surrender their arms will be sanctioned severely by the law,” he said in Sobane Da, before visiting the wounded at a local hospital.
Keita’s government made a similar pledge after an attack in March by suspected Dogon militiamen that killed more than 150 Fulani villagers. But it has struggled to disarm militias, whom local communities look to for protection from Islamist militants and ethnic reprisals. The violence between Dogon and Fulani and regular attacks by jihadist groups with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State have led many Malians to lose faith in their government’s ability to protect them.
Keita’s government also announced it had fired General Sidy Alassane Toure as governor of the Mopti region where the killings occurred. It declared three days of national mourning. Toure became the latest government official to lose his job as a result of authorities’ failure to contain spiraling ethnic violence around Mopti. After the March attack in the village of Ogossagou, Mali’s worst act of violence in years, Keita dismissed two top army officials. His prime minister and entire government also resigned shortly thereafter.
