Mali attack kills 15 in Fulani village

Fifteen people have been killed in an attack on a Fulani village in central Mali, security and local officials said on Thursday, in a fresh bout of apparent ethnic violence in the war-torn country.

Armed men attacked Sinda village between Wednesday night and the early hours of Thursday morning, said a security official who requested anonymity, adding some victims had their throats slit in their sleep.

A local elected official, who also declined to be named, said that other villagers were killed after being stopped by a group of traditional hunters known as the Dozo.

"Or at least, they were dressed like them," he said, referring to the group. Terrified villagers buried the dead on Thursday, a local teacher told AFP.

Islamist militants launched an insurgency in northern Mali in 2012, stoking a conflict that has since spread to the centre of the country and neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.

The conflict has frequently taken on an ethnic dimension, with attacks targeting Fulani people often perceived as being close to jihadists.

Radical preacher and jihadist leader Amadou Koufa, for example, is Fulani and has recruited from the ethnic group, who are traditionally nomadic herders.

Deadly clashes between Fulani and the sedentary Bambara and Dogon ethnic groups have increased.

Around 160 Fulani died in March last year in Ogossagou, near the border with Burkina Faso, in a massacre blamed on a Dogon militia.

In June, around 75 Dogons were killed in the villages of Sobane Da, Gangafani and Yoro, in an attack blamed on Fulani militants.

There had been a lull in ethnic violence since August, since armed Fulani and Dogon groups from central Mali agreed a ceasefire.