Earlier in the day Reuters reported citing a local mayor that unidentified gunmen on motorbikes attacked two villages in central Mali, killing at least 41 people.

At the same time, according to AFP report citing unnamed local officials, at least 14 people were killed in attacks against two Dogon villages.

The attacks on Ganfafani and Yoro villages left "14 people dead according to a provisional toll", local judicial official Boubacar Sidiki Samake said as cited by AFP. </s> BAMAKO — Unidentified gunmen on motorbikes attacked two villages in central Mali, killing at least 41 people in a part of the country where ethnic reprisal attacks have surged in recent months, a local mayor said on Tuesday.

The attacks on Monday evening on the villages of Yoro and Gangafani 2 compound a dire security situation in central Mali, where ethnic militias regularly slaughter civilians from rival groups and Islamist militants are also active.

The victims of Monday’s raids were mostly ethnic Dogons, said Issiaka Ganame, the mayor of Yoro, where 24 people were killed. Another 17 died in Gangafani 2.

“About 100 unidentified armed men circulating on motos all of a sudden invaded Yoro and fired on the population,” Ganame told Reuters. “Then they descended on the village of Gangafani 2, which is about 15 km (9 miles) away.”

The tit-for-tat violence in recent months has largely pitted Dogon hunters against Fulani herders. Attackers believed to be Fulani raided a Dogon village last week, killing at least 35 people.

In March, suspected Dogon militiamen killed more than 150 Fulani in two villages in central Mali, one of the worst acts of bloodshed in the country’s recent history.

President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita’s government has vowed to disarm the militias but has struggled to do so. The groups are looked to for security by local communities who do not trust the government to protect them.

On Tuesday, two labour unions representing civil servants called on state adminstrators in the Mopti region, where most of the attacks have occurred, to leave their posts and decamp to the regional capital due to death threats.

“President Keita said he was going to disarm all the militias. We take note and await the disarmament of the militias and implementation of protection measures,” said Ousmane Christian Diarra, secretary-general of the National Syndicate of Civil Administrators.

French forces intervened in Mali, a former French colony, in 2013 to push back a jihadist advance from the north. But the militants have since regrouped and use northern and central Mali as launchpads to stage attacks across the region and stoke tensions among different communities. </s> Dozens of people are reported killed after a new attack on two villages in central Mali, a part of the country experiencing a dire security situation amid an increase in tit-for-tat ethnic violence.

A local mayor told Reuters News Agency on Tuesday that unidentified gunmen on motorbikes attacked the villages of Yoro and Gangafani 2 the previous evening, killing at least 41 civilians.

The victims of the raids were mostly ethnic Dogons, according to Issiaka Ganame, the mayor of Yoro, where 24 people were killed. Another 17 died in Gangafani 2.

"About 100 unidentified armed men circulating on motos all of a sudden invaded Yoro and fired on the population," Ganame said.

"Then they descended on the village of Gangafani 2, which is about 15km away."

Separately, local judicial official Boubacar Sidiki Samake told the AFP news agency that Monday's attacks in the two villages near the border with Burkina Faso had left "14 people dead according to a provisional toll".

A Malian military source said as many as 40 people may have been killed.

No other information was immediately available.

The attack on the two villages compounds a desperate security situation in central Mali, where ethnic militias regularly slaughter civilians from rival groups.

The tit-for-tat violence in recent months has largely pitted Dogon hunters against Fulani herders. Attackers believed to be Fulani raided a Dogon village last week, killing at least 35 people.

In March, suspected Dogon militiamen killed more than 150 Fulani in two villages in central Mali, one of the worst acts of bloodshed in the country's recent history.

At least 488 Fulani civilians died in attacks carried out in the central regions of Mopti and Segou between January 1, 2018, and May 16, 2019, according to the United Nations mission in Mali (MINUSMA). In the same period, armed Fulanis had "caused 63 deaths" among civilians in the Mopti region.

President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita's government has vowed to disarm the militias but has struggled to do so.

On Tuesday, two labour unions representing civil servants called on state administrators in the Mopti region, where most of the attacks have occurred, to leave their posts and decamp to the regional capital due to death threats.

"President Keita said he was going to disarm all the militias. We take note and await the disarmament of the militias and implementation of protection measures," said Ousmane Christian Diarra, secretary-general of the National Syndicate of Civil Administrators.

Central Mali has in the past few years been overrun by fighters with links to al-Qaeda.

Violence by fighter groups has worsened almost every year since it first started in Mali in 2012 when rebel fighters and allied Tuareg rebels took over the north and advanced towards the capital, Bamako, until a French-led intervention pushed them back the following year.

Groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) used central and northern Mali as a launch pad for growing numbers of attacks across the Sahel region and stoke tensions among different communities, despite the presence of thousands of French and regional troops, as well as UN peacekeepers. </s> Bamako, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 19th Jun, 2019 ) :At least 14 people were killed in an attack on two ethnic Dogon villages in central Mali, local officials said Tuesday.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for Monday's attack but Mali has seen a spate of violence this year between ethnic Dogon and Fulani communities.

The attacks on Ganfafani and Yoro villages near the border with Burkina Faso left "14 people dead according to a provisional toll", said local judicial official Boubacar Sidiki Samake.

A Mali military source said as many as 40 people may have been killed.

Goundjou Poudiougou, a local community official, said a dozen bodies had been counted in both villages.

Earlier this year 130 people were killed in an attack on a village by suspected militiamen from a rival ethnic group.

Jihadist raids remain a persistent threat in Mali, but in the centre of the country, an ethnic mosaic, attacks have had a bloody impact on groups that have a history of rivalry. </s> At least 38 people were killed and several others sustained in an attack carried out by unidentified gunmen in Gangafani and Yoro villages in central Mali, authorities said on Tuesday.

The government responded to the incident by sending a military unit to the area to track down the perpetrators and investigate the incident, reported

According to media reports, the victims of the attacks on two villages belonged to ethnic Dogons group.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. However, members of the ethnic groups in the country often clash over access to land and water.

In a similar attack recently, at least 95 people were killed by unidentified gunmen in a village inhabited by the Dogon ethnic group in

The Dogans accuse of having ties with local jihadist groups, while claim that provides arms to Dogans to attack them. </s> (CNN) Dozens of people were killed and many others were injured when armed men attacked two villages in central Mali, the government said Tuesday.

In what the authorities are calling a "terrorist" incident, gunmen attacked the villages of Gangafani and Yoro in the Mopti region of Mali near the border with Burkina Faso, killing at least 38 people, according to an early government estimate.

The government responded to the Monday attack by sending a military unit to the area to investigate the incident and track down the perpetrators.

In a separate attack, a military patrol was ambushed by armed men in Banguimalam, according to the government statement. </s> At least 23 civilians were killed in central Mali after armed men attacked three Fulani communities, a local mayor and security forces said Monday.

Reuters news agency also reported that some 300 people were missing following the attacks.

"During Sunday, and overnight, in the villages of Bidi, Sankoro and Saran, armed men attacked civilians, killing 23 of them," Cheick Harouna Sankare, mayor of the neighboring town of Ouenkoro.

After raiding the village of Saran, the attackers went on to Bidi, but people had already fled, said Harouna Sankare, who blamed the attack on Dogon hunters.

"Since they didn't find anybody [in Bidi], they burned the village and the houses and attacked the cattle," he said.

The attacks come following a wave of deadly assaults between Fulani herders and Dogon farmers who have long fought over land and resources.

The rivalry has escalated in recent years due to the growing presence of armed Islamist groups.

Read more: Mali: 'Worse than anything we’ve seen in living memory'

President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita's government has promised to disarm the militias but has so far struggled to do so.

Tit-for-tat violence between the rival communities has increased this year. In March, suspected Dogon militiamen killed more than 150 Fulani in central Mali in one of the most violent attacks in the country's recent history. Raids on Dogon villages in June killed over 40 people.

Read more: Mali's security crisis: A cycle of exploitation and corruption

In other parts of central Mali, 12 civilians including a baby were killed on Sunday when the vehicle they were traveling in struck a landmine. Local mayor Issiaka Ganame told Reuters news agency that none of the passengers survived.

It was not clear who laid the mine, but jihadist groups have been known to deploy this kind of ordnance in the region.

Each evening at 1830 UTC, DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here. </s> Alwaght- Scores of people have been killed and many more wounded in attacks on two ethnic Dogon villages in central Mali, the government said Tuesday.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for Monday's attacks but Mali has seen a spate of massacres this year between ethnic Dogon and Fulani communities.

"The terrorist attacks on Monday evening targeted the villages of Gangafani and Yoro... not far from the border with Burkina Faso. The official provisional toll is 38 dead and numerous people wounded," the Malian government said in a statement.

"Defense and security forces have been dispatched to the location to protect the population and their property and to track down the assailants of these attacks," the statement added, revising upwards an earlier toll of 14 dead..

Goundjou Poudiougou, a local community official, said around a dozen bodies had been counted in both villages.

"They are terrorists because they killed and then disemboweled some bodies and burned crops," Poudiougou said.

Earlier this month, a massacre on another Dogon village, Sobane Da, killed 35 people, stirring fears of tit-for-tat attacks in a region with an ethnic patchwork.

"This time is the same as Sobane Da: People and animals targeted," said Adama Dionko, a spokesman for Mali's Dogon association.

"We demand the state give us more security."

Mali's armed forces also reported, on Twitter, that an army patrol Tuesday was ambushed at Gossi in the north of the country and suffered both "human and material losses".

President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has appealed for an end to the revenge attacks after he visited the site of the Sobane Da massacre.

But despite military help from France and the United Nations, Mali's government is struggling to calm violence that began in the north of the country in 2012, sparked by radical Tuareg militias.

Earlier this year, in the bloodiest raid, 160 Fulani were killed in an attack on a village by suspected militiamen from a rival ethnic group.

Ethnic violence in central Mali surged after a predominantly Fulani extremist group led by preacher Amadou Koufa emerged in 2015.

The UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, MINUSMA, said in May it had recorded nearly 500 deaths in attacks on Fulanis in the central regions of Mopti and Segou since January 2018.

Armed Fulanis caused 63 deaths among civilians in the Mopti region over the same period, it said.

The Fulani are primarily cattle breeders and traders, while the Bambara and Dogon ethic groups are traditionally sedentary farmers.

Unrest in the central region coincides with an ongoing jihadist campaign that the Mali government is struggling to contain. </s> Bamako, July 1 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Jul, 2019 ) :At least 23 civilians have been killed in attacks on villages in troubled central Mali by armed men, a local mayor and a Malian security source said on Monday.

"During Sunday, and overnight, in the villages of Bidi, Sankoro and Saran, armed men attacked civilians, killing 23 of them," Cheick Harouna Sankare, mayor of the neighbouring town of Ouenkoro, told AFP.

"The situation is serious, the army needs to act to reassure the population," he said, adding that an emergency meeting had been called.

The death toll was confirmed by a security source in Mali.

Separately, 11 people died when an explosive device blew up near the central town of Koro close to the border with Burkina Faso, a local official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Ethnic tensions in the centre of the country have surged since a jihadist group led by preacher Amadou Koufa emerged in 2015.

The group recruit mainly from among the Fulani -- primarily cattle breeders and traders -- and they have clashed with the Dogon and Bambara -- traditionally sedentary farmers who have formed their own self-defence militias.

There has been a wave of mass killings this year, including the massacre of 41 people in two ethnic Dogon villages on June 17, according to a UN count.

And in March, 160 Fulani were killed in an attack on a village by suspected rival militiamen.

Unrest in the central region coincides with an ongoing jihadist campaign that the Mali government is struggling to contain despite military help from France and the United Nations.
Forty one people are killed in an attack in the Yoro and Gangafani villages in Mali, one week after 35 are killed in another attack. The attackers, riding motorcycles, targeted primarily Dogon villages.