Mali: at least thirteen civilians killed in an attack attributed to jihadists

At least 13 Malian civilians were killed Thursday, February 23 in an attack attributed to jihadists against their village in the center of the country, local elected officials said on Friday.

“

,” a local elected official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“

, ”said another elected official, also on condition of anonymity.

“

,” added the first elected official, referring to the UN peacekeeping mission.

The locality of Kani-Bonzon is located near Bandiagara, in Dogon country.

Security crisis

Mali has been plunged into a deep security and political crisis since the outbreak of separatist and jihadist insurgencies in the north in 2012. While separatists signed a fragile peace agreement in 2015, the actions of jihadist groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda or to the Islamic State organization spread to the center and then to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger.

The violence left thousands dead, civilians and combatants, and hundreds of thousands displaced in the region.

At least 70 soldiers and a dozen volunteers have been killed in less than a week in different attacks in northern Burkina Faso, across the border with Mali.

Central Mali has been one of the main centers of Sahelian violence since 2015 and the installation of Katiba Macina, affiliated with Al-Qaeda.

Three Senegalese peacekeepers were killed there last Tuesday by the explosion of an improvised explosive device, a weapon of choice for jihadists.

"Disinformation"

The emergence of the Katiba Macina has revived or revived the old antagonisms between human groups around access to resources.

The center is prey not only to jihadist exactions but also to reprisals between communities, to the actions of proclaimed self-defense groups and to banditry.

Groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda impose pacts on the local populations under the terms of which they let them relatively go about their business in exchange for the payment of a tax, the acceptance of Islamic rules and non-collaboration with the Malian army or other other local armed groups.

The junta in power since 2020 in Bamako launched a vast operation in the center at the end of 2021, at the same time as it distanced itself from the French historical ally and approached Russia.

The offensive in the center engages elements who are Russian army instructors according to the junta and, according to its opponents, mercenaries from the private Russian company Wagner, whose actions are decried elsewhere in Africa and in the world.

The security assessment of this strategic break is controversial.

Access to independent and reliable information is difficult in a remote and dangerous sector.

The junta claims to corner the jihadists in a defensive position.

Read alsoAfter Mali and Burkina, what rear base for the French army in the Sahel?

“No more Malian state”

A UN report released in January said that in central Mali, "

".

He also said that on several occasions “

” had committed abuses in the center, an apparent reference to the new allies of the junta.

The north-east of Mali has been the scene for months of a push by the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (EIGS).

It generates intense battles with armed groups established in these immense desert expanses and with rivals affiliated with Al-Qaeda.

It gives rise to the massacre of civilians and to massive population displacements.

The situation caused European Council President Charles Michel to say that the Malian state was “

”.

A senior Western official said this week on condition of anonymity to journalists that there was “no

”.

Malian Foreign Affairs have taken issue with Charles Michel's remarks, which they believe are part of a "

" against Mali.