News

Mali: 27 killed, some burned alive in jihadi attacks on predominantly Christian villages

June 4, 2020

Persecution of Christians in Mali: “Local officials told Reuters that attacks in the villages of Bankass, Koro and Tillé were carried out by armed men on motorcycles whom they believe to be jihadists that claim to protect Fulani herders from Dogon farmers.”

The Fulani Muslim militants who have long been persecuting Christians in Nigeria are now expanding their activities to neighboring countries. Also, regarding Mali in particular, Open Doors USA reports: “In April 2012, Islamic extremists established an Islamic state system with a Sharia regime in the north. Although most Christians fled the region, churches in southern Mali have also been negatively affected by the increasing visibility of various Wahhabi (strictly orthodox Sunni Muslim sect) groups.”

Please add the tiny and embattled community of Christians in Mali to your daily prayers, asking Almighty God to protect and strengthen them, helping them endure this persecution, and to persevere until this age of persecution is ended.

For more ChristianPersecution.com coverage of the persecution of Christians in Mali, see here.

“27 killed, some burned alive in jihadi attacks on predominantly Christian villages in Mali,” by Samuel Smith, Christian Post, June 4, 2020:

Suspected Islamic radicals killed at least 27 people, some of whom were burned alive, in a series of attacks that spanned from last Tuesday to Wednesday evening in three villages that advocates say are predominantly inhabited by Christians in Central Mali, officials said. 

As escalations in communal violence have plagued the West African country in recent years, local officials told Reuters that attacks in the villages of Bankass, Koro and Tillé were carried out by armed men on motorcycles whom they believe to be jihadists that claim to protect Fulani herders from Dogon farmers.

“We were surprised by the attack on the village of Tillé,” Doucombo Deputy Mayor Yacouba Kassogué told the news agency. “Seven were killed, all Dogons, some of them burned alive.”

At least 20 additional people were reported to have been killed in neighboring villages of Bankass and Koro. 

According to local officials, most of the victims in those two villages were shot or burned to death. 

According to the interdenominational Christian aid agency Barnabus [sic] Aid, the attacks carried out last week in Central Mali victimized “mainly-Christian Dogon villages.”

“Since 2016, jihadists have been waging a war to occupy north and central Mali with the declared aim of establishing Sharia (Islamic law) throughout the country,” a statement from the aid agency reads. 

“Mali suffered its worst year of extremist violence in seven years in 2019. Jihadi militants carried out murderous attacks in the north and central area, laying waste to Christian villages and causing hundreds to flee with only the clothes on their backs.”

Dozens were reportedly killed during a suspected Fulani attack in the mainly-Christian village of Sobame Da, a village in the Mopti region of central Mali, in June 2019.

Although initial reports suggested that over 100 were killed in Sobame Da, officials later revised the death toll to 35, including 24 children, on grounds that officials had earlier confused missing persons with those killed. 

However, some community leaders argued that the initial death toll was accurate and that investigators did not uncover everybody in homes burned by the perpetrators, according to The Washington Post

Mali, a predominantly Muslim country in West Africa, ranks as the 29th-worst country in the world when it comes to Christian persecution on Open Doors USA’s 2020 World Watch List. 

According to the Joshua Project, the Dogon community has traditionally celebrated animistic religion but are increasingly turning to Islam “for lack of an alternative.” Today, the majority of Dogon communities are Muslim but about 11% believe in Jesus. 

“In the few villages where Christianity has been lived out by missionaries, or locals who have become Christians elsewhere, one can indeed see the growth of the Christian faith,” the Joshua Project reports

According to an Open Doors dossier on Mali, Islamic militants in the country “have been busy attacking the country’s security forces and Christians.” The document reports that “Christian villages were targeted and destroyed, with the attacks sometimes having both ethnic and religious elements.”…