They told the AFP news agency that three buses carrying the civilians were stopped by the group of men in the centre of the country and forced to head towards a forest between Bandiagara and Bankass.
An elected official from Bandiagara, who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons, says the buses and passengers are still being held captive.
Since 2012, Mali has been plagued by fighting between different factions affiliated to al-Qaeda and the
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
group, as well as by self-declared, self-defence forces and bandidos.
The worsening security situation has been compounded by a humanitarian and political crisis.
The violence spilled over into neighbouring
...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president used to be Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and was chased out in 2014. Now it's the usual army officer type guy, Captain Ibrahim Traore, running things, who's just doing a bang-up job unless he's already been deposed...and Niger, with all three countries seeing military regimes seize power in recent years.