40 dead in Mali attacks

40 people, including nine soldiers, have been killed in Mali during three separate attacks that took place on Friday.

30 gunmen are reported to have descended on the village Ogossagou in central Mali, killing thirty-one civilians and burning houses, crops and livestock to the ground. 

Two further ambushes in Gao and Mondoro resulted in nine soldiers being killed, including one at a military base that had been targeted by an earlier raid in October 2019.

Ogossagou had been the site of a previous attack in March last year, in which 160 people were killed. 

The village is mostly home to Fulanis: a largely-Muslim ethnic group who traditionally work as farmers. 

Other Ethnic groups, including the Dogon community, frequently accuse the Fulani of being linked to jihadist groups in the region. 

The attacks in March were blamed on members of the Dogon community and resulted in widespread protests over perceived government inaction.

No one has yet claimed responsibility for the latest attacks but Mali has been the site of numerous assaults by Islamist militia since a secessionist insurgency in 2012. 

Since then, Malian forces - aided by French and UN troops - have managed to regain large swathes of territory taken by the militants, but the region remains unstable.

Thousands of lives have been lost by attacks linked to Al-Qaeda and ISIS as the conflict has spread to neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger. 

Photo: Reuters