Mali

More than 60 civilians died in tit-for-tat clashes between communities in northern Burkina Faso recently, government said, the latest inter-communal violence afflicting West Africa’s Sahel region. Burkina and neighbouring Mali have seen a spike in ethnic clashes fuelled by Islamist militants seeking to extend influence over the Sahel, an arid region between Africa’s northern Sahara desert and its southern savannas.

Appearing before the Security Council on Friday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that the only way to prevent increased violence and instability in Mali is to tackle root causes such as grinding poverty; climate change and competition for resources; underdevelopment, and a fundamental lack of opportunities for young people.

The United Nations has dispatched human rights experts to central Mali to investigate a weekend massacre of at least 157 villagers seen as one of the worst acts of bloodshed in a country beset by ethnic violence. The attack, in which women and children were burned in their homes by gunmen, escalated a conflict between Dogon hunters and Fulani herders that killed hundreds of civilians in 2018 and is spreading across the Sahel, the arid region between the Sahara desert to the north and Africa's savannas to the south.

Mali’s authorities have been urged by the UN to provide justice for the victims and survivors of attacks by so-called self-defence groups, responsible for horrific intercommunal violence in central Mali, after a weekend assault that claimed the lives of more than 150 people, including some 50 children.

The brutal massacre over the weekend of 154 Fulani men, women and children in central Mali once again drew the world's attention to a once peaceful state now dogged by ongoing violence. The massacre took place as a delegation from the United Nations Security Council visited the unstable Sahel region to assess the security situation amid the threat of Islamic extremist groups.

A Mali-based al Qaeda affiliate has claimed responsibility for an attack on an army base that killed 23 Malian soldiers last week, its media arm said in a statement on Friday, citing violence against Fulani herdsmen as the motive.

At least 16 soldiers have been killed in a raid on an army camp in central Mali's Mopti region, two local councillors in the area where the attack happened said.

[…] As needs rise, aid groups say their ability to respond is being hamstrung by an increasingly militarised security landscape marked by confusion between military and humanitarian actors, shifting conflict dynamics, and funding gaps that are leaving displaced people like Guindo sick and starving.

[…] The recent wave of violence comes despite stepped-up efforts to end the unrest here, including peace agreements between communities, ceasefire commitments, airstrikes by French forces, presidential visits, and a government-backed demobilisation, disarmament, and reintegration, or DDR, scheme that has just got going.