Herders, farmers clash along border

About a dozen people died in communal clashes earlier this month along the border between Mauritania and Mali, according to various reports. A media source in Bamako told IRIN the conflict started when herdsmen in Missira-Samoura, a village populated mainly by farmers in western Mali, refused to allow a Mauritanian horseman to use a watering hole. The horseman rode off and returned with some of his clansmen, attacking the village on 20 June. AFP reported that two people died in that raid. The villagers retaliated two days later by attacking the horseman's village, Naime, in south-eastern Mauritania. According to the media source in Bamako, 11 Mauritanians died in that attack. The source said the governor of Koulikoro, the Malian province that includes Missira-Samoura, and the Walid (governor) of Hodh region in Mauritania travelled together to both villages on 23 June in a bid to bring calm to the area. The two officials apologised to each community, the source said. AFP quoted the Home Affairs Ministry in Mali as saying that "the Malian and Mauritanian governments are doing everything to make calm return to the area, in particular by organising patrols along the border." Cheikh Saad Bouh Kamara, president of the Association mauritanienne des Droits de l'Homme, told IRIN from Nouakchott that the incidents were related to the problem of relations between sedentary farmers and herders, who generally take their herds to Mali during the dry season and bring them back during the rains. Generally there are more cases of good relations between the farmers and nomads than bad, he said, but problems do arise as a result of the area's severe poverty and tradition of vendetta. "I deplore the fact that these incidents have occurred," he told IRIN. "I recommend the two governments to get together (on the issue), while civil society and community leaders should be in permanent contact with one another so as to prevent this type of conflict."