Bamako - At least 21 people were dead or
missing on Friday after an attack on a village that was the
scene last year of Mali's worst civilian massacre in recent
memory, the government said.
A government statement did not say who carried out the
attack on Friday morning on Ogossagou, a village of Fulani
herders in central Mali. Moulaye Guindo, mayor of the nearby
town of Bankass, said at least 20 people had been killed.
In the attack on Ogossagou last March, suspected militiamen
from a rival group killed more than 150 civilians, part of
spiralling ethnic and jihadi violence in West Africa's vast
Sahel region.
"They came and shot everything that moved," said Hamadou
Dicko from Fulani association Tabital Pulaaku, who put the death
toll at 22 minimum.
Guindo and another local official, who declined to be named,
said Ogossagou had come under attack less than 24 hours after
Malian troops who had been stationed near Ogossagou left their
base.
An army spokesman said soldiers had been deployed to respond
to the attack but declined to comment on whether they had
previously left the local base.
Central Malian residents have criticised the army for
failing to protect them against violence that has displaced
200,000 people and left many communities with no local
government or means of defence.
They have turned to self-defence militias for protection
against jihadists and rival ethnic groups though the defence
groups have also used their weapons to settle scores.
Malian officials have said they suspect Dan Na Ambassagou,
an anti-jihadi, ethnic Dogon group of carrying out last year's
massacre in Ogossagou. The group denies responsibility.
French forces intervened in 2013 to drive back al
Qaeda-linked jihadists who had seized northern Mali the previous
year, but the militants have regrouped, stoking ethnic rivalries
in central Mali and elsewhere to boost recruitment and
destabilise the region.