Raiders dressed as traditional hunters slaughtered more than 130 people — including women and children — in a Malian village Saturday amid ethnic strife in the West African nation, according to reports.
Armed hunters surrounded the village of Ogossago at dawn Saturday before storming in with guns and machetes and slaughtering villagers inside their homes, the BBC reported.
The death toll reached 134 Sunday with 55 reported injuries, according to CNN.
Nearly all the village’s huts had been burned after the raid, AFP reported.
The perpetrators were dressed as traditional Dozo hunters — known for wearing leather hunting suits, kill trophies and gris-gris voodoo talismans — and targeted members of the Fula ethnic group.
The hunters — part of the Dogon ethnic group — are known to clash with semi-nomadic Fulanis over access to land and water in the landlocked nation. Dogons say the Fulanis have Jihadist ties, while the Fulanis claim the Malian government is arming Dogons to kill them.
The Malian government condemned the violence and said it “reiterates its determination to make every effort to hunt down the perpetrators of this barbarity of another age and to punish them, in accordance with the laws in force.”
Mali President Ibrahim Boubacar on Sunday dissolved a Dogon self-defense group called the Dan Na Ambassagou, which was accused last year of targeting Fulanis — though Boubacar did not say whether they were responsible for Saturday’s bloodshed.