Credit: Wikiwand / An uptick in attacks in ethnic villages in central Mali have left hundreds of civilians dead this year.

By Gary Raynaldo      DIPLOMATIC  TIMES

At least 23 civilians were killed in central Mali after armed men attacked three Fulani communities, a local mayor and security forces said Monday. Malians are angry that the government has failed to stem the tide of deadly ethnic violence that has risen during the past three years. And the  presence of thousands of UN peacekeeping troops and French soldiers has also failed to halt the deadly violence. The UN Security Council  last Friday  extended for one year the mandate of the Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA).  The mission of some 14,000 peacekeepers is tasked to support the transitional authorities of Mali in the stabilization of the country and implementation of the transitional roadmap. Operation Barkhane is a French military operation with 4,000 soldiers that started in 2014 to oppose terrorism across the Sahel. Unidentified armed individuals attacked the villages of Yoro and Gangafani, in the Mopti region in central Mali, near the border with Burkina Faso on June 17,  killing at least 38 persons and many wounded, the UN reported. It was the latest deadly attack in the West Africa nation Mali.  Nearly 100 people were reportedly killed during an attack on a traditional Dogon hunters’ village in Mali on June 9, Sunday.  Some 500 civilians have been killed since January 2018 in ethnic violence.  More than 200 people have been killed by anti-jihadist self-defense groups in Mali since the start of this year, according to the UN.

What is happening in the West African nation of Mali is quite unprecedented. The once peaceful country has descended into a cycle  of deadly ethnic and Islamist violence during the past few years.  In early June, tens of thousands of protesters marched in Mali’s capital Bamako, to protest what they described as President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita’s failure to stop a surge of violence in the center of the country. The demonstrations in Bamako condemned the killing of some 160 people in the Ogossagou, a village belonging to the Muslim Fulani ethnic group of herders in the Mopti region, on March 23.  Mali has experienced a deadly wave of violence this year from terror attacks and onslaught  between Dogon hunters and Fulani herders.  However, many Malians are shocked at the  sheer level of horrific ethnic violence seen in recent years, and are skeptical that Malians all of a sudden are killing each other due to ethnic disputes. Many suspect outside forces are exploiting the ethnic disputes, and are supplying the weapons used to kill Malian civilians.