On Saturday, an attack on a Fulani village left over 160 dead and shone a light on a serious and ongoing crisis in the region
A 10-days-old baby killed with its mother. People thrown into a ditch of burning oil before being fired upon. A village chief captured and summarily executed in front of his own mother.

Hamadoun Dicko, a Fulani leader from Mali, is speaking to Middle East Eye about the latest devastating attack on members of his ethnic group.

On Saturday, 160 people were massacred in the village of Ogossagou, in the Mopti region of central Mali. An armed militia of men belonging to the Dogon ethnic group came to inflict their terrible toll, razing huts and leaving behind the charred remains of Fulani women and children.

'There is a genocide taking place against the Fulani community in Mali'

- Hamadoun Dicko, Fulani leader from Mali

Dicko told MEE that he had lost nine members of his family at the hands of the Dan Na Ambassagou militant group, and that he is now unable to return to his village for fear of death.

The attacks, UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said, were "horrific".

Dicko and fellow Fulani leaders in Mali say this massacre is part of a "genocide" being waged against their community, which numbers almost three million in the African state.

It is the latest in a cycle of violence that has beset the region in recent years, increasingly focused on Fulanis, who are targeted partly because they are seen as being tied to militant groups operating in the region.

“Fulanis could be massacred everywhere in Mali,” Dicko, a spokesperson for the Mali chapter of Tabitaal Pulaaku, which represents Fulanis across the world, said.

“There is a genocide taking place against the Fulani community in Mali. The Malian nation is in danger and there is a strong probability that Fulanis could be massacred everywhere. They are no longer in security.”

The violence comes as Mali’s internationally backed military campaign against militant groups increasingly becomes a war on the Fulani, according to analysts.

According to Ibrahim Yahaya from the International Crisis Group, Dogons now perceive Fulanis as “being in bed with the jihadists” and have attacked their villages indiscriminately.

Ogossagou
A woman stands outside a house at the site of an attack by gunmen on Fulani herders in Ogossagou, Mali (Malian Presidency handout)
“The fact that these groups have recruited more Fulani than everyone else have given them a Fulani identity,” Ibrahim said.

“Sometimes the jihadists attack individuals who are Dogon and the Dogons reply by attacking Fulani villages.”

While there have historically been tensions between herders, generally from the Fulani tribe, and Dogon farmers, violence has been rare. The situation has taken a marked turn with the ascendancy in 2015 of militants inspired by jihadist ideology in the region.

Among these groups is the Macina Liberation Front (MLF), led by Amadou Koufa, a local Fulani preacher who has travelled to the Middle East and Afghanistan, and who emerged unscathed earlier this month after reportedly being killed by French forces last year.

The MLF takes its name from the Macina Empire, anchored in central Mali, one of several Fulani Jihad states to dominate West Africa in the 19th century.

Responsible for attacks on government and army positions as well as on civilians from across the ethnic divide, the MLF seeks to overthrow the Malian state and establish rule according to an extreme interpretation of Islamic law.

It fights under the banner of Nusrat al-Islam, the official branch of al-Qaeda in Mali, which brings together several like-minded militant groups operating in West Africa and the Maghreb.

Groups linked to the Islamic State group are also known to operate in the region.

'They tap into grievances'
Religious rhetoric featured little in MLF’s initial call to arms, broadcast via radio, often in the Fulani language, to remote communities.

Instead, Koufa tapped into the long-held grievances of local populations, many of whom were poor Fulani herders who felt marginalised by a government they saw as corrupt and exploitative.

“They tap into grievances to make their case that the government is corrupt, that communities are marginalised,” said Ibrahim. “Once they capture people this way they then move onto the religious side.”

A link between sub-Saharan Africa and the Arab world, Mali has long served as a crossroads of culture and trade. Ancient gold deposits have given rise to vast kingdoms. Timbuktu was once a great city of Islamic learning.

Major settlements, including Bamako and Segou, straddle the banks of the Niger, the principal river of West Africa, which cuts a crescent-like course through the landlocked country, providing a lifeline for millions.

Once a land of fabled riches, the country now ranks among the poorest in the world, coming in at 183 out of 187 countries in the UN’s Human Development Index.

Living conditions in central Mali lag well behind national averages, fuelling grievances. The poverty rate there is estimated at around 60 percent, compared to 11 percent in the capital Bamako.

Mali map
In response to the Mopti attack, the Malian government has fired military top brass and disbanded the Dan Na Ambassagou, a collection of Dogon self-defence groups made up of traditional hunters, which has been blamed for the attack.

These groups began to appear in 2016, as Dogons began to organise themselves in response to MLF attacks.

“Some Dogons became very weary of the Fulani and some militias started appearing asking for eviction of Fulanis from the whole region,” said Dougoukolo Alpha Oumar Ba-Konare, a Paris-based analyst and teacher of Fulani societies at the French National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilisations.

Tit-for-tat attacks left scores dead.

Two alleged Fulani militants killed two men suspected of being informants for the Malian armed forces in 2016. Retaliatory attacks left 30 people dead on both sides.

In 2017, alleged Fulani armed assailants killed a prominent member of a Dogon hunting society, sparking retaliatory attacks by armed Dogons against Fulani villages. Thirty-five were left dead, forcing the evacuation of several thousand civilians.

'There were pregnant women and elders killed and they cut some people’s throats and they burned alive others'

- Dougoukolo Alpha Oumar Ba-Konare, Fulani analyst

In 2018, the violence escalated. Human Rights Watch documented 42 incidents of communal violence in Mopti last year. A total of 202 civilians were killed, with 156 of them Fulani.

Villages burnt to the ground, the cutting of hands, feet and reproductive organs have become part of a cycle of gratuitous violence which culminated in last weekend’s attack, described by Ba-Konare as “the biggest and most nefarious”.

“There were pregnant women and elders killed and they cut some people’s throats and they burned alive others. It’s heart-rending, you can see people being set in stone because of the way they were burnt. They burnt all the animals in that village.”

On Friday, a Mali-based al-Qaeda affiliate claimed responsibility for a recent attack on a military base that left more than 20 soldiers dead.

The militants said it was revenge for attacks against Fulani herders.

One Ogossagou resident told the Reuters news agency that Saturday's violence appeared to be in retaliation for the attack on the soldiers.

And so it goes on.

https://middleeasteye.net/big-story/massacre-mali-how-war-terror-fuels-tribal-violence-sahel

Last last we go all dey alright

Fulani Jihadists are causing havoc all over West Africa


They think we're in 13th century,

This is how they are carrying out ethnic cleansing in Southern Kaduna

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0CeMHeoejw

Now those are the people who knows how to respond to Fulanis bullshit

He who kills by the sword shall die by the sword.

They probably thought every West African country is like Nigeria where they have a Buhari to protect them as they get away with murder.

United Nation should declare APC as a terrorist organization.

It would have been the other way round if the people were not wise enough

The SW should be on the lookout. The Fulani have taken over almost all forest reserves in the SW!!

They are being killed by their fellow Muslims.

Muslims killing Muslims since time immemorial.

CityNGR:
The SW should be on the lookout. The Fulani have taken over almost all forest reserves in the SW!!

So true.

Was in SW last two months and I can affirm to this.

How does this concern anybody? Fulanis have been murdering other tribes for centuries upon centuries so I'm very sorry but that's what they get for being murderous.

Hatred, killings all in the name of politics

Optional09:
Now those are the people who knows how to respond to Fulanis bullshit

Mumu for lack of vision my people perish,those Fulanis from Mali will find their way to Nigeria,the most prosperous country amongst the chad river basin countries,more problems for Nigeria.

Same way Jonathan congratulated the eec for removing colonel gaddafi not knowing that singular action by those Babylonian oyibos was going to distablize the region,see the immigration to Italy through Libya and the rise in terrorism Boko haram in west Africa.

sapele914:
Mumu for lack of vision my people perish,those Fulanis from Mali will find their way to Nigeria,the most prosperous country amongst the chad river basin countries,more problems for Nigeria.

Same way Jonathan congratulated the eec for removing colonel gaddafi not knowing that singular action by those Babylonian oyibos was going to distablize the region,see the immigration to Italy through Libya and the rise in terrorism Boko haram in west Africa.

Ur point exactly?

Karma is playing song on them. They should not complain. They live by sword and must die by sword. Let them taste how bitter it is to kill ones family.

Africa needs to build strong security network and efficient governments.

How this wan take concern us... if them like make dem wipe them out

Benue nassarawa Jos ... Dem too dull..

Make Dem borrow sense from dogon people..

Those it mean fulani is synonymous with violence.

Even in Nzam, Mbaise, and Ozadi.
The Fulani have also taken over the forests of Okija, Orlu, Uli,Isiato, Okigwe, Arochukwu,Bende and the lands of the Ezza people

CityNGR:
The SW should be on the lookout. The Fulani have taken over almost all forest reserves in the SW!!

greatdreamer:
United Nation should declare APC as a terrorist organization.

.



And unfit to rule Nigeria.

And APC quickly framed Bokoharam into Macan and Muric groups.

Buhari will never allow full autonomy of Police, Resources and Elections to our 36 Constitutional States. Lawan is in the Senate to ensure that.

Omudia11:
How does this concern anybody? Fulanis have been murdering other tribes for centuries upon centuries so I'm very sorry but that's what they get for being murderous.

.


It's a slap, and an impetuous one for that matter, on the Yorubas, Ibos, Ijaws, Tivs, etc faces to regard every Nigerian as Afonja or Tinobu.

Fulani terrorists pull such genocide almost on a daily basis here in Nigeria with Kaduna, Benue and Plateau being regular flashpoints, let's not forget Zamfara which is a special case which has been caught up in the government imposed lexicon " armed bandits" to deflect attention from the ethnicity of these murderers. Nobody knows why those Malians got so angry to the extent they started killing Fulani just the way Fulani's have been murdering Christians here but I would like to see if these Fulani people can pull their manic revenge scenarios in Mali where e be like say people wey get craze pass them dey stay

[quote author=greatdreamer post=77078921]United Nation should declare APC as a terrorist organization.
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Truly they are group of unscrupulous hooligans, miscreants, and cultists, hiding under governmental powers,to rape the citizens of Nigeria.

Hahahahahahaha

I'm so happy right now

Hahahahahahaha

Kill them all