Eleven people were shot dead in central Mali by unidentified gunmen, while in the east, an explosion killed one person and injured two, and two people were killed by armed men on motorcycles.
The gun attack took place on Monday, October 15 in the village of Telly, a few dozen kilometres from the town of Tenenkou in the Mopti region of central Mali, a local official said.
“They killed 11 civilians. Some of them came by motor bike,” the source said.
A Malian security source confirmed the attack in Telly and the death toll, and said “criminals” were to blame.
“There are also people who have been reported missing. We don’t know how many,” the security source said.
The defense ministry did not return a request for information.
Roadside bomb blast kills one, injures two in Menaka
Meanwhile, in the eastern town of Menaka a deputy mayor said one woman was killed and two others were seriously injured by a landmine on the road between Chamane and Tin Fadimata on Tuesday, October 16.
They were travelling by donkey when one of the animals stepped on the bomb, an improvised device “set by terrorists,” the official said.
“They [the injured] have been taken to the Tin Fadimata Medical Centre,” the source said.
The Tuareg group the Movement for the Salvation of Azawad confirmed the incident and said in a Facebook post the women were from the Idaksahak community.
Separately on Monday, armed men on motorcycles killed two people in Tin-Alakan, around 15 km (9 miles) southwest of Anderamboukane in the Menaka region, Studio Tamani reported.
The recent unrest in Mali began with a 2012 Tuareg separatist uprising against the state, which was exploited by jihadists linked to al-Qaeda who took key cities in the north.
The insurgency gradually spread to the country’s center, where local grievances are sometimes exploited by radical Islamists in a region awash with guns. The groups have morphed into more nimble formations operating in rural areas, sometimes winning over local populations by providing basic services and protection from bandits.
But violence between rival ethnic groups, notably Fulani herders and Dogon farmers fighting over access to land is an apparently growing problem.
In late September, more than 20 Tuareg civilians were killed by armed men on motorcycles near Mali’s frontier with Niger, and on September 25, at least 27 people died in clashes west of Menaka.
More than 500 civilians have been killed since the start of the year, according to U.N. figures.
Around 4,500 French personnel are deployed to Operation Barkhane, and they work alongside the G5 Sahel joint counter-terrorism force that aims to train 5,000 troops, as well as peacekeepers deployed to the United Nations Minusma stabilization mission in Mali.
French paratroops conducted an airborne operation in the Ménaka region near the Niger border on September 27, and a follow-up ground operation reportedly resulted in a number of arrests.
On August 26, a French airstrike in the Menaka region killed a senior Islamic State in the Greater Sahara official, a bodyguard and two civilians.
With reporting from AFP