Suspected jihadists have killed 14 civilians in Lere, central Mali, in recent days, officials and locals told AFP on Thursday.

The West African nation has, since 2012, faced attacks both from local criminal gangs and from Islamic militants — the Islamic State group and the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), which is affiliated with Al-Qaeda.

A local official said armed fighters had launched one attack on Monday, “and kidnapped 12 people, whom they then killed”. The official, who blamed the JNIM, requested anonymity for security reasons.

In a separate incident, two shepherds who had been kidnapped four days earlier were “found dead a few kilometres (miles) from the town”, the source said.

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He said the attackers had accused the civilians of “being accomplices” of the Malian army.

A United Nations official confirmed to AFP: “We have received reports that 14 civilian men have been executed. Hundreds of people have fled in the last 48 hours.”

Two residents of Lere who escaped westwards to seek refuge in Mauritania told AFP the assailants had given locals “a 24-hour ultimatum” to leave the town, and those who could not or who refused were either “murdered or taken hostage”.

The JNIM has blockaded Lere and other towns for the past two weeks and, since September, has stopped fuel tankers entering Mali from neighbouring countries, in a bid to put pressure on the ruling military junta by stifling the economy.

The UN official said the JNIM had accused Lere inhabitants of “not respecting the conditions they had set”.

A security source based in Timbuktu, the main city in northern Mali, said “at least 10 people” had been killed, as did a soldier who travelled to Lere “to confirm the massacre”.

AFP

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