Massacre in Mali Prompts UN to Call for ‘National Upsurge’

(Bloomberg) -- The United Nations in Mali called for nationwide efforts to end a “spiral of violence” after a massacre in the central Mopti region left at least 95 people dead and many others injured.

Gunmen raided a village near the city of Bandiagara late Sunday in what appears to be a reprisal attack, marking the second such incident this year. In March, the government dismissed several military commanders after a similar assault by local militia claimed 134 lives.

“The threshold of what’s intolerable has been reached and it’s time for a national upsurge,” Mahamat Saleh Annadif, the UN special representative to Mali, said in a statement Monday. “This drama reminds us unfortunately that there are no good guys on one side and bad guys on the other in this spiral of violence.”

Communal conflict in Mali and other West African nations is being stoked by a toxic combination of climate change, population growth and state neglect and is being exploited by Islamist insurgencies, which have drawn the intervention of French and UN troops. The attack earlier this year pitted farmers against herders, who are predominantly ethnic Fulani.

To contact the reporter on this story: Bokar Sangare in Accra at bsangare1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Karl Maier at kmaier2@bloomberg.net, Pauline Bax, Hilton Shone

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