A/HRC/40/77 Expert was informed that, during the week preceding his arrival in Mali, at least 27 people had been killed and 11 houses had been burned. During his stay, at least 35 people were killed in violent incidents. The involvement of armed groups known as self-defence groups, which are formed largely along ethnic lines, together with extremist armed groups and the Malian armed forces, has evidently worsened the situation. Although the origin of these conflicts can be found in disputes over access to natural resources and their use that have arisen since 2015, the gradual entrenchment of extremist groups in these areas, the disruption of traditional dispute settlement systems and the withdrawal of the Malian State have all prompted local people to turn to increasingly organized violence to settle their differences. 40. The Independent Expert notes with concern that the bitter violence between certain communities in the centre of the country is increasingly deadly and increasingly frequent. He is troubled by continuing reports of serious human rights violations being committed by traditional hunters (dozos) against members of the Fulani community in Mopti Region and by the ongoing violence between the Tamasheq-Iderfane and Tamasheq-Ibogalitane factions in Gao Region and the south-western part of Ménaka Region. During the Independent Expert’s mission to Mali, at around 10 p.m. on 4 October, traditional hunters from the Dogon community reportedly killed six Fulani herders in the village of Diakourou in Mopti Region. According to those reports, 17 traditional hunters on motorcycles shot the victims while they were sleeping in the woods with their livestock, on the pretext that they were members of violent armed extremist groups. The assailants also stole some of the victims’ livestock. In another incident, on 29 September 2018, at around 9 a.m., gunmen from the Tamasheq-Ibogalitane faction reportedly killed at least 20 civilians, including a child, from the Tamasheq-Iderfane faction in an attack on the Amlawlaw and Karan camps in Gao Region. In addition, it has been reported that the perpetrators of the attack set fire to several homes and that the local population was forced to take refuge in the vicinity of the village of Tin Hama. 41. The Independent Expert notes that this attack followed the deaths of at least 24 civilian members of the Ibogalitane faction on 25 September 2018 in an attack attributed to alleged members of the Iderfane faction in the Tinipchi camp in Ménaka Region. On 30 May 2018, a farmer in the village of Banani, Mopti Region, was reportedly killed by armed men while planting crops in one of his fields near the village. He was a member of the Dogon community. The involvement of armed groups, including the armed groups that signed the peace agreement, and the proliferation of weapons may be contributing to the deterioration of the security situation in this part of Mali. 42. The Independent Expert acknowledges that intercommunal violence is not unusual. Its magnitude and ferocity are unprecedented, however. He also notes that members of Fulani communities are stigmatized as members of extremist groups and lumped together with them, and that members of the Dogon community are cast as traditional hunters in the pay of the State. The divide between the two communities has widened since June 2017. The formation of a new armed, self-styled self-defence group for the Fulani community, l’Alliance pour le Salut au Sahel (Alliance for the Salvation of the Sahel), has been announced on social networks, and the activities of the brotherhoods of traditional hunters, or dozos, have gradually shifted to the defence of the Dogon community or to attacks that are increasingly targeting members of the Fulani community. 43. The Independent Expert wishes to emphasize that various initiatives have been undertaken by the Malian authorities, including at the local level, to combat this violence. On 14 April 2018, in a communiqué calling on the Malian defence and security forces to disarm all civilians, including those licensed to bear arms, the Prime Minister announced the launch of a disarmament campaign. The communiqué also indicated that the Government was suspending the issuance of all new firearm licences until further notice. On 2 October 2018, the Prime Minister, accompanied by the Minister of Defence and the President of the High Court of Justice, travelled to Mopti Region, where he met with the governor, other regional and local authorities and representatives of the Fulani and Dogon communities to lend support to reconciliation efforts aimed at ending the conflict between the two communities. 10 GE.19-00939