The country is plagued by a toxic mix of ethnic rivalry, jihadism and poor governance
SEVEN YEARS ago separatists from the Tuareg ethnic group and jihadists allied to al-Qaeda took over most of the sparsely populated north of Mali. France sent more than 4,000 troops to stop the rebels’ southwards advance on the capital of their former colony, Bamako, and drove them out of the larger cities. The UN has about 15,000 soldiers and police in the country at present, one of its biggest peacekeeping forces in the world.
The government of Mali, a country of about 18m people, has shown little interest in re-establishing control in the north or providing social services there. It tends to focus on the country’s gold-rich south-west. This has allowed drug traffickers, militiamen and jihadists—often the lines between them are blurred—to flourish in the populous central regions.
The litany of killings is horrendous. In March Dogon militiamen butchered more than 170 people in Ogossagou, a Fulani village in central Mali. The outcry forced the government to resign. In June dozens of gunmen suspected to be from a Fulani “self-defence group” killed 35 people at a Dogon village. And a week later another 41 people were reportedly massacred in two more Dogon villages.
The murders are part of a cycle of tit-for-tat attacks that are also often linked to conflicts about land or theft of cattle. The government has done little to resolve them. Some soldiers have even given Dogon and Bambara militiamen official passes to get through checkpoints, and been on patrols with them. The resulting sense of impunity has had tragic consequences. In seven years more than 1,800 people have died. Mali’s army has proved woefully inadequate for re-establishing governance.
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