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| - Four people were killed on Saturday in an attack on a village in central Mali, an area riven with intercommunal and jihadist violence, the mayor told AFP. The attackers arrived in the morning on about 100 motorcycles, said Ali Dolo, the mayor of the Sangha rural community of Dogons. He said the attackers "spoke Fulani". Two other inhabitants were wounded in the attack and cattle was stolen. "A person who was hit by a bullet has just arrived (at the health post) from Sangha," a resident of the village told AFP. At least 12 people were killed and several head of cattle were stolen in April in an attack on several villages in the area 30 kilometres (18 miles) from Bandiagara, one of the main towns in the area. Central Mali has been the scene of a large amount of violence since the Islamic preacher Amadou Koufa, who has recruited widely from the Fulani community, founded the Katiba Macina militia in 2015. Koufa helped set up the Group to Support Islam and Muslims (GSIM), the main jihadist alliance in the Sahel affiliated with Al-Qaeda, in 2017. Attacks, often followed by reprisals, have multiplied. They took an intercommunity turn between the Fulani, mainly breeders, and the Bambara and Dogon ethnic groups, who mainly practice agriculture. ah-sd/mrb/bsp/bp
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