Moti, Mali: Some are men of arms, who have taken up a gun out of need or for a cause. Others are just ordinary civilians, struggling to survive from one day to the next and make sense of the mayhem.
These are the people of central Mali, which in 2015 spiraled into violence, ethnic feuds, and tit-for-tat killings. Over 18 months, AFP interviewed eight individuals who come from very different backgrounds, yet who have all experienced the region’s chapter of horror.
Violence broke out in Mali’s powderkeg center when a firebrand preacher named Amadou Koufa established an Al-Qaeda-aligned militant group.
Hailing from the community of nomadic Fulani herders, also known as the Peul, the inflamed age-old tensions between herders and farmers and among ethnic groups. To start with, Koufa largely recruited among his own people, and the wider Fulani community became tarred because of their attacks.
Other ethnic groups, notably the traditional Dogon hunters and the Bambara, formed so-called self-defense forces. One of these groups, a pro-Dogon militia called the Dan Nan Ambassagou, has been accused by NGOs and the UN of carrying out massacres in Fulani villages, an allegation it denies.
Although officially dissolved, the force remains active. The Malian army has also been accused by NGOs of occasionally collaborating with the Dan Nan Ambassagou against the militants, who have been a scourge of the Malian government and its Western allies since 2012.
Nearly 200,000 people have fled violence in central Mali and thousands have been killed. Here we have chosen the accounts of eight individuals, who were interviewed in the capital Bamako or during trips to the volatile central towns of Mopti and the city of Sevare.
AFP has agreed to withhold the identities of the eight. The names in this story have been changed for security reasons, and the quotes have been edited for clarity. For Georges, a hotel owner in his 40s, life changed in 2017 when tourists stopped coming to his bushland Dogon home and weapons appeared instead. He ended up joining a Dogon militia.
“There’d never been trouble between the Fulani and Dogon, it was quiet in the village. But gradually, problems arose. Here, it was the case of a Fulani who killed a Dogon elder. “Fulanis arrived next, we were told they attacked neighboring villages. We had to defend ourselves.
“As the eldest, I’d inherited protective amulets and my father’s hunting rifle. The responsibility fell to me, I had to go and fight in the group. Fourteen others from the village came. Each brought their protection and their weapon.
“We stayed on the road, asked people to give us something to buy cigarettes and food with. It was OK, it worked. Anyway, we were protected by the amulet. “But later, there was fighting. Some were drinking too much, taking advantage of their power. They forced people to respect them, imposing senseless fines.
“At a certain point, it became clear. We weren’t fighting the jihadists anymore, we were extorting money from people, including Dogon. I didn’t join Dan Nan Ambassagou to do harm, I wanted to help people.
“I went to see the leader, told him I had something to buy in Bamako. I didn’t come back.” Georges now lives in Bamako, where he picks up work on construction sites. He still has his protective amulets.
Fourteen-year-old Fatoumata shyly keeps her eyes fixed on the ground as she recounts the day in March 2019 when armed men launched a dawn attack on the Fulani half of Ogossagou village.
The Dan Nan Ambassagou has been blamed for the attack but an inquiry’s findings are yet to be made public.
“When the village next to ours had been attacked, we’d taken refuge with other Fulani in Ogossagou. Everyone did the same. Everywhere, Fulani villages emptied out. “The attack (on Ogossagou) took place several months later at the start of harvesting. It was dawn, after morning prayers. They surrounded the village, shot everywhere.
“When it started we were sleeping in the hut. They shot at it from outside. I ran out, I went into another hut with my mother. We got down but the men came in, they shot at all the people there.
“There were eight people in the hut. Six died. I had pain in both legs, I passed out. They must have thought I was dead. When I came to, help had arrived. I opened my eyes, my mother was there, next to me, dead.”
At least 157 people were killed. Fatoumata suffered two broken legs and still walks with a limp. She found refuge in a camp for the displaced in Mopti.
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