More than 20 people, including children, were killed in air strikes during a wedding ceremony in a remote desert area of central Mali, according to local sources.
It was not clear who carried out the attacks, but reports came when French military sources said their forces in the country carried out an air strike in the area on Sunday that killed “dozens of fighters” from Islamic groups.
Witnesses said the attacks appeared to target men on motorcycles in the villages of Bounti and Kikara, believed to be Islamic militants.
But civilians were caught in the attack as people gathered for a wedding ceremony on Sunday.
A man wounded in the attack told the Associated Press that the extremists approached a group of civilians who were celebrating a wedding and demanded that the men present be separated from the women.
“We were following orders when I heard the sound of an airplane and immediately a blow from above. Then I saw nothing because I was unconscious, ”said the man at a health center in Douentza, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Other residents of Bounti said a lone helicopter opened fire in broad daylight, sowing panic among the crowd gathered for a wedding.
“It was ‘running for their lives’,” said Ahmadou Ghana, who said that 19 people died, two of whom were his brothers and several others were seriously injured.
“We were surprised by the intensity of the attack,” said another resident, Mady Dicko, adding: “The helicopter was flying very low.”
On Sunday, Tabital Pulakuu, an association promoting the culture of Mali’s Fulani ethnic group, reported on an “air raid that claimed the lives of at least 20 civilians” during a wedding.
Confirmation of reports is difficult in a remote area where many jihadists operate.
A French military spokesman, Cel Frederic Barbry, denied a connection between the strike and a wedding party, saying that such a link “does not correspond to the information collected before the air strike”.
Barbry told the Associated Press that the operation followed a multi-day intelligence mission that showed a “meeting of suspicious people”. The French military concluded that it was an “armed terrorist group” based on the attitudes of individuals, their equipment and other intelligence, he said.
France has more than 5,100 military personnel based in the region to help contain Islamic militants. But a seven-year intervention came at a cost, as forces struggle to contain jihadists in the open desert.
Offensive air operations in Mali are mainly conducted by the Malian military or the French anti-jihadist force Barkhane.
Bounti is in the Mopti region, about 370 miles from Mali’s capital, Bamako. There are many jihadists operating in the area.
The region is the center of a deadly Islamic offensive that began in northern Mali in 2012 and then moved on to neighbors Burkina Faso and Niger, igniting ethnic tensions along the way.
Thousands of soldiers and civilians have died in the conflict so far and hundreds of thousands of people have had to flee their homes.
But Bounti’s deaths occurred during an apparent increase in bloodshed across the Sahel.
On Saturday in western Niger, jihadists killed 100 civilians in one of the biggest massacres of non-combatants in the history of the insurgency.
France has also lost five soldiers to roadside bombs in recent weeks.