Mali’s prime minister and his whole government offered their resignations to the country’s president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita on Thursday after four weeks of a horrific massacre of Fulani community members carried out by the Dogon ethnic group on Ogossagou, a village in central Mali, in which nearly 160 people were killed.
It was one of the deadliest attacks the country has experienced in years. The Dogon ethnic group, hunting and farming community, has a long history of tension with the nomadic Fulani people.
Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Bamako earlier this month to protest the upsurge of violence. The government has come under immense pressure over its inability to restore stability.
“The president accepts the resignation of the prime minister and that of the members of government,” said a statement from President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita’s office, reported Bloomberg.
The resignation comes ahead of a no-confidence vote submitted by MPs over Malian Prime Minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga’s failure to tackle a rise in deadly attacks from Islamist militants and clashes between ethnic communities.
As per the statement released by the President’s office, a new prime minister will be named very soon and a new government will be put in place after consultations with all political forces from both the ruling and opposition sides. The statement offered no reason for the departure of the Prime Minister.
The president said in a televised address on Tuesday that he had “heard the anger”.
While the Malian authorities have detained five people suspected of taking part in the massacre, they have not yet succeeded in disarming the militia that many believe executed it.
Mali has been in turmoil since a rebellion by Tuaregs and allied jihadists took over half the country in 2012, prompting the French to intervene to push them back the following year.
