Mali: An Eye FOr An Eye

MALI

An Eye for an Eye

Unknown assailants slaughtered at least 95 people in a village in central Mali on Monday, marking a possible escalation of an ethnic conflict that has been energized by Islamist extremists.

Nineteen people remained missing after the attack on the ethnic Dogon village of Sobame Da around 3 a.m. Monday, Interior Security Ministry spokesman Amadou Sangho told the Associated Press.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack so far. But tensions between the Dogon and Peuhl ethnicities have been running high since a Dogon militia was blamed for an earlier massacre of a Peuhl village that killed at least 157 people in March, the agency noted. Following that incident, some Peuhl leaders had vowed they would get revenge.

Mali has long battled Islamist extremism in its northern region, prompting a French-led military intervention in 2012. But now the extremists are influencing communities in the south – with the Dogon accusing the Peuhl of conspiring with Islamic State to attack them and the Peuhl accusing the Dogon of collaborating with the country’s military.