(New York, N.Y.) - Violence amongst ethnic
groups in Mali has sparked concern from human rights
campaigners. The country experienced its deadliest year for civilians
in 2019 since Mali’s political and military crisis in 2012. Jihadists
from al-Qaeda and ISIS have been encouraging inter-ethnic attacks in
the hopes of asserting their power throughout both the country and the
West African region. In the past two years, these militants have also
demonstrated their influence by forming an alliance called the Jama’at
Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM) and by establishing a new cell
called the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara. A new Human Rights Watch report has estimated that more
than 456 people have died in the past year alone from the
violence.
In Mali, hunters from the Dogon ethnic group have
historically clashed over land access with herdsmen from the Fulani
ethnic group. In March 2019, for example, suspected members of the
Dogon killed more than 150 people in an attack on Fulani villages.
Additionally, JNIM’s leader has used his radio sermons to exploit the
historical rivalry between the Fulani and Dogon groups. Amadou Kouffa, an ethnic Fulani and founder of the
Macina Liberation Front (MLF), started gaining popularity due in part
to his mastery of radio as a tool for communication in his native
Fulani language. Given the popularity of Kouffa’s radio sermons, many
of Kouffa’s recruits are Fulanis, and the MLF is often considered in
Malian media to be a “Fulani movement.”
In March 2017, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Ansar
al-Dine (AAD), and al-Mourabitoun merged to form JNIM. Since its
formation, JNIM has carried out a number of violent attacks and was
designated as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” by the U.S.
government on September 5, 2018. According to the Center for Strategic
& International Studies, JNIM absorbed the MLF, an AAD-affiliated
Islamist group that seeks to establish an Islamic state in central and
southern Mali.
To read CEP’s Mali resource, please click here.
To read CEP’s Amadou Kouffa resource, please click here.