Six dead in Mali following the UN attack while the UN calls for an end to the "spiral of violence"

Six people were killed during attacks on villages in the Dogon ethnic community in central Mali, local officials and a security source said while the UN mission had called for the end of the war. "the spiral of violence" that afflicts the region.

The attacks followed a deadly raid on Saturday in the village of Ogbadogou, home to the Fulani breeding community near the town of Mopti. About 160 people died in the badault, local officials and security sources said.

A militia of the Dogon ethnic group – a community of hunters and agriculturalists with a long history of tension with the Fulani about access to land – is suspected of having carried out the Saturday raid.

"This spiral of violence must stop immediately," the UN mission in Mali, MINUSMA, said in a statement.

A local councilor in the region, Oumar Diallo, said the Dogon village of Ouadou had been "attacked by gunmen".

"Houses were set on fire, the death toll was four.In another village around Bankbad, two women were also killed," he told AFP.

A Malian security source confirmed the toll, as did MINUSMA, which said the attack took place on the night of Monday to Tuesday, adding that "several houses had been burned and cattle had been stolen. ".

The UN rights office in Geneva announced Tuesday that it has sent a team of investigators to the area.

Saturday's raid was the deadliest attack in Mali since the military intervention led by France in 2013, which pushed back the jihadist groups that had taken control of the country's north.

Jihadist raids remain a persistent threat and, in the center of the country, an ethnic mosaic, the attacks have had a bloody impact on groups with a history of rivalry.

The Fulani have been accused of supporting a jihadist preacher, Amadou Kufa, who became known in central Mali four years ago.

So-called self-defense groups have appeared in the Dogon community in the declared role of providing protection against insurgents.

But these militias also used their status to attack the Fulani.

Violence between the Fulani and the Dogon and between the Fulani and Bambara ethnic groups claimed nearly 500 civilian casualties last year, according to UN figures.