SUMMARY
Over the years, Mali has been hard hit by organized violence. While not constant, the country has seen repeated cycles of violence that has escalated to new heights in the last few years.
Since 1989, Mali has experienced the intrastate, non-state and one-sided categories of organized violence, as defined by UCDP.
2025
In 2025, the overall level of organized violence in Mali escalated somewhat, but remained on roughly the same level as the year prior. Since the peak in 2022 and subsequent fall in 2023, it seems to have plateaued at around 2000 fatalities per year.
The main reason for the continued high levels of fatalities from organized violence in Mali in 2025 was developments in the state-based conflict category. The year saw a rise in the number of fatalities in all three state-based conflicts active in the country, with a total toll of over 1350 deaths, compared to just over 1000 in 2024. As in previous years, it was the conflict fought over government power, between the Malian government and the al-Qaida-loyal JNIM that showed the highest overall level of violence, with almost 1100 fatalities incurred, and which affected large parts of the country. By contrast, fighting in the conflict between the state and the Islamic State’s Sahel Province (ISPP) was far less deadly, with almost 200 fatalities in total, as well as more geographically constrained, confined to the Menaka region in the country’s north-east. Finally, the conflict fought against the separatist FLA was the least deadly, with only intermittent fighting in the northern Kidal region.
While state-based conflicts were the main drivers behind the high number of fatalities in 2025, the level of violence remained high in the one-sided violence category as well. With a total of 632 fatalities from the one-sided targeting of civilians, this was the second highest number recorded since 1989, albeit well below the peak in 2022, when more than 1450 civilians died in this type of violence. Aside from FLA, all other parties to the state-based conflicts carried out one-sided violence, with the Malian government, most of the time in conjunction with the [Russian troops(/#/actor/57) deployed in the country, standing out as the main perpetrators. In addition, the Dozos, a loosely connected group of militias affiliated with various Mandé ethnic groups, allied to the government in the context of the state-based conflicts also carried out one-sided violence in 2025. The allied forces’ abuses were spread across much of the country and consisted of both multiple small-scale killings of one or two individuals and a number of large massacres, notably the killing of at least 65 Fulani men near the Kwala military camp in Koulikoro region in April.
The level of violence in the non-state category decreased for the third consecutive year. Peaking with more than 750 fatalities in 2023, it was down to just over 160 in 2025. This was not due to the de-escalation of one major conflict, but to a decrease in violence in all non-state conflicts fought in the country compared to the year prior. As in 2024, it was the conflict between the self-defense militia Dan na Ambassagou and JNIM that resulted in the highest number of fatalities.
Repeated cycles of violence
There were three smaller peaks in organized violence in Mali, followed by a major one. After it had de-escalated, violence plateaued and remained on a level that was still far above the previous three peaks. While these peaks and the plateau seen over the last few years were driven by different types of violence, at least some of them were closely interlinked and part of the same overarching context.
The first two peaks, in the early and mid-1990s, were tied to the separatist struggle of sections of the Tuareg people in the northern part of the country, with some fighting for the creation of an independent state – Azawad – and others for autonomy. This conflict erupted when large numbers of young Tuaregs who had migrated to Libya and Algeria in the mid-1970s were evicted from their host countries and forced to return to Mali. Of those exiled in Libya, many had received military training and a large number had also been politically active, preparing for an eventual rebellion. In mid-1990, the group that would later take the name MPA thus launched its rebellion and during the rest of the year, the north and east of the country was engulfed in violence.
While the MPA signed a peace agreement already the following year, and violence de-escalated, the ground had been prepared for the future bouts of violence that would hit the country. Cracks within Tuareg society, existing for a long time, had widened and tensions between them and other communities in the north had increased. The latter development contributed to the second peak in organized violence, in 1994, which was mainly driven by one-sided violence. That year, the conflict over the status of Azawad once again became active, as the separatist group FIAA – formed by the Arab elements in the rebel movement, worried that they would receive too small a share of the benefits from a possible peace settlement – stepped up attacks. In response, government troops proceeded to carry out large-scale attacks on the civilian Arab and Tuareg population. Further contributing to the cycle of violence, FIAA subsequently carried out ethnically motivated killings of civilians regarded as government supporters.
While the period 1995-2011 saw some small bouts of violence, they paled in comparison to developments starting in 2012. In January of that year, MNLA (subsequently CMA) emerged as the largest mainly-Tuareg armed group and a new phase of the conflict over Azawad commenced, driving the fatality toll upwards. After initially succeeding in pushing government troops from northern Mali and declaring the independent state of Azawad in April, an alliance of Islamist groups evicted MNLA from the main cities of the region. A conflict over government subsequently ensued, pitting the Islamists against the Bamako regime. Having controlled the country's vast north during the latter half of 2012, Ansar Dine, together with fellow Islamist groups AQIM, MUJAO and Signed-in-Blood Battalion launched an offensive south in early 2013.This spawned external intervention from e.g. France and the Islamists were pushed back, albeit far from defeated. Fighting was heavy during the year, and fatality numbers soared.
During the following three years, activity in the state-based conflicts decreased. However, from 2017 onwards, organized violence in the country began escalating again, reaching the above-mentioned all-time high in 2022. A number of factors contributed to the steady escalation, such as the consolidation of the pro-al-Qaida alliance JNIM, including most of the Islamist groups active in the country, which stepped up its attacks on military targets causing fatalities in state-based conflict to rise. In addition to the escalating number of fatalities, the areas hit by organized violence continued to expand. This was mainly due to the fact that JNIM was able to increase its geographical reach over the years, moving closer to Bamako, and carrying out attacks throughout central and many areas of northern Mali. Furthermore, the eruption of a new state-based conflict in 2023 – between the government and the Tuareg alliance CSP-PSD – led to more fighting in northern Kidal region.
It was above all the interplay between the three types of violence that together contributed to the rise in fatality numbers. The three types of violence were closely connected, with activity in one of them causing both further violence within the same type, but also setting off a chain of events in others. Recruitment to the Islamist groups largely followed ethnic and communal cleavages, which caused ethnic tensions, and contributed to a process whereby the different ethnic groups in the conflict-hit areas mobilized and created self-defense militias. Subsequently, a pattern emerged with tit-for-tat one-sided killings, as well as non-state conflict between these ethnic groups. Some of the worst perpetrators of attacks on civilians during these years were the Dogon self-defense militia Dan na Amassagou, and the more loosely organized Dozos, which carried out a number of brutal attacks on Fulani civilians, under the logic that the latter were seen as being tied to JNIM. Subsequently, JNIM in turn attacked Dogon civilians.
A similar logic was clear further east, where the Malian government and IS fought each other. The government, and its ally (until 2022) France, were supported by pro-government militia groups GATIA and MSA, and the islamists and the two latter organizations also fought each other in an escalating non-state conflict. This, in turn, was closely tied to, and feeding into ethnic tensions between Daoussak Tuaregs and Fulanis in Mali’s Menaka region, but also across the border in Niger. Furthermore, IS, viewing the Daoussak Tuaregs as MSA supporters, carried out one-sided attacks against their villages.
Pre-1989 conflicts
UCDP has also recorded one interstate conflict involving Mali, in the period 1946-1988. On Christmas day 1985, Malian troops attacked a number of Burkinabè villages in the border area between the two states. The background to the attack was protracted disagreement over the actual delineation of the border, which had its roots in the arbitrary delineation of national borders in colonial times. The zone of contention stretched 100 miles, from Dionouga in the west, to the border with Niger in the east. Its location near the Beli River – situated north of Djibo in Burkina Faso and south of Hombouri of Mali – secured for parts of the area a permanent supply of water, a strategic commodity for two land-locked countries in a dry region. After decades of unsuccessful attempts to resolve the issue peacefully, punctuated by small-scale clashes in 1974, out-right fighting thus erupted in December 1985. The armed conflict was brief, however, and limited to a handful of military engagements, before a cessation of hostilities agreement came into effect on 31 December. The conflict issue could finally be resolved in 1986 through a ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, whereby the disputed area was divided into two parts, roughly equal in size.
