The Dogon people are an ethnic group who have lived in the central plateau region of West Africa, south of the Niger River, for thousands of years. Anthropologists and scientists, including American Carl Sagan, have paid great attention to the Dogon’s precise knowledge of astronomy and the people’s origin mythology, which holds that they are the descendants of beings from outer space.
The Dogon’s millennia-long presence in this region is reflected in ancient drawings on cave walls in the region. Their traditional wooden face masks, used in ritual dancing, and their unique architecture are all part of a heritage that is increasingly threatened with extinction, according to the UN’s cultural agency UNESCO. Today the Dogon number between 300,000 and 400,000, divided into various tribes and clans. Most have converted to Islam, yet continue to adhere to traditional, pagan customs too.
The Dogon mainly live in central and southeastern Mali, stretching the length of the state of Mopti, and across the border in northern Burkina Faso. They compete for grazing lands with the Fulani people, whose lands surround those of the Dogon from the north and west, and along the border with neighboring Niger’s Tillaberi region. Years of drought since 2015 have fueled intermittent armed conflicts between the Dogon and Fulani.
Growing Insecurity
The rise of jihadist groups from around led to violence against Dogon villages from around 2016. While these attacks initially numbered between five and 10 a year, they have escalated sharply since June 2023.
The jihadist Macina Liberation Front (MLF) , which has pledged allegiance to the Al-Qaeda-aligned Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), reached an agreement with the elders of the Dogon tribes in mid-2020, stipulating that the Dogon must pay an Islamic tax ( zakat ) on their livestock and refrain from cooperating with Malian forces and pro-government militias against the MLF. In exchange, the militants would protect the Dogon from bandits, prevent the Islamic State group from encroaching on their lands, and arbitrate between them and Fulani tribesmen in inter-communal conflicts.
That agreement remained in effect until June 2023, when the largely Dogon, pro-army self-defence militia Dan Na Ambassago pressured the leader of a village near the town of Bawadiya into photographing members of the battalion as they walked around collecting the livestock tax. Soon afterwards, some of those militants were arrested by the Malian army and handed to the Wagner Group, which tortured and executed them.
Later that month, the MLF informed the elders of the Dogon tribes that their agreement was now null and void, and that it would seize their lands by force. In August, hundreds of MLF fighters attacked the village and executed about 20 of its male residents.
However, the MLF had reportedly carried out a growing number of attacks against Dogon villages even prior to the collapse of the agreement, starting in March 2023. It also carried out three large-scale attacks in late January and early February 2024, against Dogon communities across Mopti State, in Ségou, Bawadia, and Donfou Dogon.
The movement also stole hundreds of livestock from the Dogon villages of Sissabougou and Bawadia, and burned their grain storage sites. This was followed by an MLF attack on a Dan Na Ambassago base in the town of Sonfounou-Dogon, in which three members of the militia were killed and at least 10 were wounded. The jihadists also seized livestock and dozens of motorbikes.
Context and Repercussions
The emergence of jihadist groups in the Mopti region, starting from 2015, came in parallel with successive waves of drought across the central and western Sahel countries. Drought has been a key reason for the escalating conflicts between Mali’s various ethnic groups over grazing land.
Many Fulani tribes were early supporters of the MLF, while the Dogon tribes have mostly placed their loyalties with the Malian government. In 2019, mainly Dogon militias carried out two massacres against the Fulani ethnic group, killing a total of 270 civilians. This set off a surge of Fulani recruitment to jihadist organizations in the region, particularly JNIM but also later IS, with the aim of taking revenge on the Dogon and their backers—government forces, and later the Wagner Group.
The brutality of IS had prompted Dogon tribal sheikhs to reach a protection agreement with JNIM in 2020, but the agreement’s collapse, as described above, sparked expanded JNIM armed activity against the Dogon.
JNIM’s recent operations reflect the militia’s growing strength vis-à-vis the Malian government, local pro-government militias and the Wagner group. They also demonstrate that the group is attempting to block the expansion of IS into the region from the east. Taking part in JNIM attacks has also provided the MLF with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of livestock and motorcycles, boosting both their revenues and their supply of the primary means of transportation in the region.
It is likely that the MLF will continue to carry out such attacks, but this may not prevent the group from reaching another agreement with the elders of the Dogon tribes, with a new formula—rather than the Dogon simply cooperating and paying “taxes” to the MLF, the group may seek to take full control of the region to head off any potential agreement between the Dogon and the Malian government, which supports local fighters battling all jihadist groups in the region—especially the MLF.
