Gunmen killed 26 people in an attack on a village in central Mali’s insurgent-hit Mopti region on Sunday, a local official said on Monday.<\/p>\n
The attack targeted a village in the Circle of Bankass, one of several areas in Mali’s north and centre where terrorist groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State are waging a violent insurgency.<\/p>\n
Armed assailants opened fire on villagers working their fields on Sunday evening, Bankass Mayor Moulaye Guindo said via telephone.<\/p>\n
Soldiers deployed to the area only reached the village after the attack, Guindo said, deploring worsening insecurity in the West African country.<\/p>\n
The army did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
The insurgency in the Sahel region south of the Sahara has gained momentum since it took root in Mali on the back of a 2012 Tuareg rebellion.<\/p>\n
Despite costly military pushbacks, jihadists have spread into neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger, and more recently into the north of coastal countries such as Togo, Ghana and Ivory Coast.<\/p>\n
Thousands of people have been killed and millions more displaced. Around 40 people died in a\u00a0similar attack on a village\u00a0in Bankass at the start of July and\u00a0over 20 in another attack\u00a0at the end of May.<\/p>\n
Authorities’ failure to protect civilians contributed to two coups in Mali, two in Burkina Faso and one in Niger since 2020.<\/p>\n
Juntas have since turned their backs to traditional Western allies and sought Russian support for fighting the groups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gunmen killed 26 people in an attack on a village in central Mali’s insurgent-hit Mopti region on Sunday, a local official said on Monday. The attack targeted a village in the Circle of Bankass, one of several areas in Mali’s north and centre where terrorist groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State are waging […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8861,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":18,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"Reuters","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"0","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"0","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"0","show_popup_post":"0","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1129,27],"tags":[2784,187,2783,2785],"class_list":["post-12577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security","category-west-africa","tag-bankass","tag-mali","tag-mopti-region","tag-tuareg-rebellion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}