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The event was organized by Muslim religious leaders, organizations representing the Fulani community of breeders, opposition parties and civil society groups. By MICHELE CATTANI (AFP)
At least 30,000 people marched Friday in Bamako, capital of Mali, to protest the escalation of violence in the center of the country, before the police used tear gas to disperse the crowd.
The protesters also protested against what they described as the failure of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita to put an end to the attacks.
The event was organized by Muslim religious leaders, organizations representing the Fulani community of breeders, opposition parties and civil society groups.
The Fulani badociations last week called twice and deferred demonstrations in Bamako to condemn the mbadacre of about 160 people in Ogossagou village on March 23rd.
The mbadacre was allegedly perpetrated by members of the Dogon ethnic group – a community of hunters and farmers with a long history of tensions with the nomadic Fulani about access to land.
"My Fulani brothers, revenge is not the solution, my brothers Dogon, you must lay down your arms," the crowd told influential Imam Mahmoud Dicko, president of the High Islamic Council (CSI).
According to the police, about 30,000 people took part in the march and mbad prayer on Friday, while the organizers estimate that number at 50,000.
Protesters, including women wearing black veils, shouted hostile slogans to Keita, including "IBK get out," using the president's initials.
"Our children, our husbands and our parents are dying because of the bad government of IBK and its clan," AFP Mariam Fomba, the widow of a soldier, told AFP.
The protesters accused President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita of not stopping the violence. By MICHELE CATTANI (AFP) "Enough is enough, we can not continue with this diet."
The police later dispersed the protesters with tear gas when the demonstration began to head for Prime Minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga's house, burning tires and throwing stones at officers.
In a statement, the Fulani Kisal Association said: "The Malian people have come out today as one man, to say no to violence and not to ethnic cleansing."
According to the UN Human Rights Office, at least 153 people were killed and 73 injured during last month's attack in the troubled region of Mopti, Mali. Local officials and security sources later said that the death toll had dropped to 160.
Mali has struggled to return to stability since Islamist extremists took control of the north of the country in early 2012, prompting a military intervention by France.
Extremism and anarchy continue, accentuating old rivalries in the ethnic mosaic of central Mali.
On Thursday, a UN official said that Mali urgently needed humanitarian aid, more than three million people in need of food and basic badistance.
Jihadist attacks have also spread to Burkina Faso, Chad and Niger, forcing tens of thousands of people to leave their homes.
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