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TAKING CONTROL This June 7, 2021 file photo shows Col. Assimi Goita during his swearing-in ceremony as Mali’s transitional president in the capital Bamako. XINHUA PHOTO
BAMAKO, Mali: Dozens of Malians demonstrated on Tuesday in the central town of Bankass to demand state protection after suspected jihadists massacred at least 132 civilians, and possibly many more, in nearby neighboring villages.
The mass killing — the latest in a series of attacks across the Sahel region — resulted in one of Mali’s highest civilian death tolls.
The government says fighters from the Fulani religious leader Amadou Koufa’s armed group, the Katiba Macina, killed 132 civilians in Diallassagou and two surrounding villages, a few dozen kilometers (miles) from Bankass.
A local official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were “more than 200 dead and missing.”
“We have never seen anything like this in Mali — the state must do something,” he told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
A police official said more bodies had been found on Tuesday.
Junta leader Col. Assimi Goita declared three days of mourning and the government on Tuesday sent a delegation of four ministers — led by Col. Ismael Wague, a junta strongman — to the scene, some 500 km (310 mi) northeast of the capital Bamako.
They expressed their sympathy and stopped by the hospital in Mopti, where some of the injured are being treated.
“We gave them symbolic ‘envelopes’ from the president of the transition, Col. Goita,” said Malian Health Minister Dieminatou Sangare, who was also part of the delegation.
The junta, which seized power in 2020 after months of protests against the civilian government’s failure to end the violence racking the country, said on Monday the safety of Mali’s citizens remained its “absolute priority.”
But that was not enough for the people of Bankass, the capital of the area where the massacre took place.
“We want the authorities to think about us,” a woman who did not give her name told reporters after a march to demand better security.
“I lost my two children; I have nothing to live for. Look for yourselves: we are being martyred, raped, abandoned,” she added before bursting into tears.
A collective that says it is made up of elected officials and civil society representatives has declared “civil disobedience” until further notice.
“Apart from health, all public services have been blocked — almost no one has gone to work,” a youth leader said.
Political leaders in Bamako expressed sympathy while rallying around the armed forces.
But a group of political parties named the “Cadre d’echange,” or Exchange Framework, and the National Human Rights Commission urged the authorities to take measures to prevent such tragedies from happening again.
Local officials said dozens of jihadists appeared on motorcycles, then rounded up and massacred dozens of men over the weekend.
They also said the armed men burned down shops, looted villages and stole cattle.
The bloodbath is believed to have culminated last Saturday night, with many people fleeing their homes.
Central Mali has been plagued by violence since the al-Qaeda-affiliated Katiba Macina emerged in 2015.
Much of the area is beyond state control and is prone to violence by self-defense militias and intercommunity reprisals.
On March 23, 2019, more than 160 Fulani civilians were massacred in the village of Ogossagou.
Since 2012, Mali has been rocked by an insurgency by groups linked to al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State group.
Violence that began in the north has since spread to the center and neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger.
Thousands of civilians and combatants have died and hundreds of thousands have been displaced in one of the world’s poorest regions.
Two-thirds of Mali remains beyond state control.
The junta has recently turned away from Mali’s former military allies, including France, and toward the Russians.
But Mali has seen a series of mass killings in recent months, including in the so-called three-border area on the border with Niger and Burkina Faso.
No one has claimed responsibility for the Diallassagou massacre.
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