UN: 580 Malians Killed In The Sahel During 2020 So Far

More than 500 civilians have died this year so far in Central Mali, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said on Friday.

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It is estimated that 580 people died as a result of armed conflicts that have kept in turmoil during eight years the region of Sahel, a semi-arid area directly south of the Sahara desert in northwestern and central Africa.

UN informed that violent disputes between the Peulh and Dogon communities have increased in recent months, with community-based militias, initially formed to defend communities becoming increasingly violent and involved in attacks against other communities.

The organization is expected next week to renew the mandate of its peacekeeping mission in Mali, the Protection Division of the Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission (MINUSMA), in an attempt to control the conflict that has been branded as UN's most "dangerous mission."

Bachelet warned that the violence is escalating as ethnic militias initially formed to protect the Fulani and Dogon communities are killing people, stealing cattle, looting granaries, and burning homes.

In January 2020, The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) published a report revealing that after the surge of the attacks in Central Sahel, 4.3 million children needed humanitarian assistance.

In Mali, after the military coup of March 2012, armed groups that had occupied most of the northern region started heading south, intent on taking control of the whole country. Ever since, the Central Sahel has become a war zone where several confrontations overlap.

There are conflicts between different social and ethnic communities, between jihadist groups and the government, as well as numerous armed groups operating in the region, sometimes with different and sometimes with shared goals and territories.

On the other hand, the UN has accused the Malian military of carrying out 130 extrajudicial killings, mainly targeting members of the Fulani community.

The organization reported that people forcibly displaced by the conflict had amounted to 1.5 million by April 2020. During 2019 alone, more than 670,000 children across the region have been forced to flee their homes because of armed conflict and insecurity.