Over 100 killed in Mali hunter-farmer conflict

MALI - Traditional Dogon hunters killed at least 100 people in an attack on a Fulani community village in central Mali on Saturday, security, military and local officials said.

"At least 50 Fulani civilians have been killed Saturday in the village of Ogossagou by traditional hunters," a security source told AFP.

"They were killed with guns, machetes," he added.

Cheick Harouna Sankare, mayor of neighbouring Ouenkoro, confirmed the toll. "There are for the moment about fifty dead in the village.

"It is a massacre of Fulani civilians by traditional Dogon hunters".

The toll was in danger of rising because they had no news of other civilians and the army was not yet on site to help them, he added.

A Malian military source also reported the attack.

The attack happened at Bankass, near the border with Burkina Faso, where there has been frequent inter-communal violence.

Two witnesses questioned separately by AFP said traditional hunters had burned down nearly all the huts in the village.

A statement by a local community defence association for the Fulani also reported the attack. Neighbouring villages had been attacked too said the statement, from the Kisal association, which did not give a toll.

The conflict was just the latest in a series of clashes between the Dogon and the Fulani -- the English term for Peul -- communities that have left dozens dead in recent months.

In January, Dogon hungers were blamed for the killing of 37 people in a Fulani village.

The violence is fuelled by accusations of grazing cattle on Dogon land and disputes over access to land and water, but the area is also troubled by jihadist influence.

Some communities have accused the herders of being accomplices of jihadist groups.