Gunmen have killed at least 95 residents of a village in central Mali home to the Dogon ethnic minority, a local official and a security source said today.
The attack took place last night in the town of Soban-Ku, near the town of Sango, French radio RFI reported.
The bodies of those killed were burned, a local official said, adding that a search is underway for more victims, according to the BBC.
"So far we have 95 civilians killed, the bodies have been burned and we continue to pick up the bodies," said a representative of the Kundu district where the village is located. He says that the civilians said that armed men came and shot, looted and burned, and that it was a village with 300 inhabitants.
A security source said that it was a village where the Dogon minority lives and that the village was practically razed to the ground, and also said that they counted 95 dead civilians.
Northern Mali fell into the hands of extremist groups in March and April 2012, which were dispersed by a military intervention launched in January 2013 at the initiative of France.
However, entire zones remained outside the control of Malian, French and UN forces, despite the peace agreement that was supposed to isolate the extremists.
Since 2015, violence has spread from the north to the center of the country and sometimes to the south.
It culminated on March 23 with the massacre in Ogosago, near the border with Burkina Faso, when 160 locals, members of the Fulani ethnic community, were killed by groups of hunters from the Dogon community.
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