Mali foreign minister in Mauritania over shooting

NOUAKCHOTT

Mali's foreign minister arrived in the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott Tuesday, a few hours before the bodies of several Mauritanians shot dead by Malian soldiers were due to be repatriated.

Tieman Coulibaly, who was met by Mauritanian Foreign Minister Hamadi Ould Hamadi, is due to meet Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, one diplomat said.

Coulibaly made no comment to reporters at the airport.

Feelings are running high in Mauritania after Malian troops shot dead 16 Muslim men at a checkpoint in Diabali, central Mali, overnight Saturday.

Officials in Mali have that said eight of those killed were from Mauritania, while the others were Malian.

The men belonged to the Dawa Islamist sect and, according to sources in both Mauritania and Malik, had been heading to a religious conference in Bamako.

Malian army officials initially said troops were forced to open fire after their vehicle failed to stop at a checkpoint, but a Malian soldier later said the shootings had been a mistake.

Malian troops are on high alert after hardline Islamists seized the country's north earlier this year.

But Diabali is located about 400 kilometres (250 miles) northeast of Bamako, hundreds of kilometres south of the Islamist-controlled north of the country.

Mauritanians have protested outside the presidency in Nouakchott to demand action against those responsible.

In a strongly worded statement, Mauritania described the victims as unarmed Muslim preachers and has called for an independent investigation into the killings.

A Mali government source said the foreign minister was in Mauritania to personally express the government's "compassion and regret" for what had happened.

The bodies of some of the slain Mauritanians were due to be flown into Nouakchott in the small hours of Wednesday morning, one airport official told AFP.

Corinne Dufka, a senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch, called the shooting a "horrific incident".

"The Malian government should suspend the soldiers and their superiors implicated, with a view towards holding all those responsible, regardless of rank," she said. "Justice must be done, and be seen to be done."

Since a disastrous March coup in Bamako, Mali has lost control of all of the arid north and Islamists have been swift to impose tough sharia law, including stoning people to death and amputating thieves.