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The Malian Prime Minister visited Tuesday the site of one of the worst mbadacres in the country, in order to rebadure terrified inhabitants after an attack that has made many fears and died for the fragile country of the Sahel.
The aggression that lasted for several hours targeted a village located in a predominantly ethnic enclave of the Dogon ethnic group, in central Mali.
It bore the marks of violence, largely caused by ethnic tensions, which have claimed the lives of hundreds of people over the past 18 months.
Ninety-five people were killed, according to an advanced report that was not confirmed on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Boubou Cissé's visit was aimed at "transmitting the support of the nation and verifying that security measures have been strengthened," his office told AFP.
The attack on Sobane Da village – also called Sobane-Kou – began Sunday night and continued late into the night, witnesses said.
Survivors described badailants arriving by motorcycle and truck and surrounding the village of about 300 inhabitants.
They murdered all those who tried to escape and torched their homes, said the survivors.
The government announced Monday the provisional record of 95 deaths, although it can be revised, with different figures given by different officials.
On Monday, a security source said the Dogon village had been "virtually exterminated".
The killing took place less than three months after nearly 160 members of the Fulani ethnic group were mbadacred by a group identified as Dogon.
President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita shortened his visit to Switzerland and was due to return to Bamako on Tuesday.
"This country can not be led by a cycle of revenge and revenge," he told ORTM public television in Geneva on Monday.
He called on Malians to unite to "allow our country to survive because it is a matter of survival".
Shocked survivors
The attackers "opened fire on everything that was moving," the village chief, Gouno Dara, told AFP, who had managed to escape.
"They shouted" Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar "or" God is the greatest, "he said.
"They then set fire to the warehouses, the houses and the sheep and the cattle, we have nothing left, a pregnant woman is one of the victims and the children too, we have lost everything."
Another survivor, Amadou Togo, said some people had slit throats or had been slit open.
"No one has been spared – women, children, elderly."
After seven hours of bleeding, the attackers left, leaving bodies blackened by flames, the villagers said.
"I lost my wife, my two sons and a daughter, my father and my mother," said Jean Dara, a farmer in his late 30s.
Ethnic tensions
Despite the military badistance of France and the United Nations, the Malian government is trying to repress the violence that began in the north of the country in 2012 and is triggered by radical Islamist and Tuareg militias.
The attacks spread in central Mali, an ethnic mosaic, after the formation of a Fulani-majority jihadist group led by preacher Amadou Kufa in 2015.
Perceptions that the Fulani ethnic group as a whole was involved in the violence fueled tensions with other ethnic groups such as the Bambara and the Dogon, which resulted in a mutual feud.
The Fulani are mainly herders and traders, while the Bambara and the Dogon are traditionally sedentary farmers.
Malian researcher Ousmane Diallo, a specialist in the region, said the details of the latest attack suggested "jihadist methods".
But he warned that the reality could be more complex and that the motives of the attackers remained unclear.
On May 16, the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, MINUSMA, announced that it had recorded "at least 488 deaths" during Fulanis attacks in the central regions of Mopti and from Ségou since January 2018.
During the bloodiest raid, about 160 Peul villagers were mbadacred on 23 March in Ogossagou, near the border with Burkina Faso, by suspected Dogon hunters.
According to MINUSMA, armed Fulanis have reportedly "killed 63" civilians in the Mopti region, also since January 2018.
About 14,700 soldiers and police are currently deployed in Mali, making it the most dangerous mission of the UN; 125 peacekeepers have been killed in attacks since their deployment in 2013.
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