Suspected terrorists have killed 14 civilians in Lere, central Mali, in recent days, officials and locals told AFP on Thursday.

The West African nation has, since 2012, faced attacks both from local criminal gangs and from terrorist groups.

A local official said suspected terrorists had launched one attack on Monday "and kidnapped 12 people, who they then killed". The official requested anonymity for security reasons.

In a separate incident, two shepherds who had been kidnapped four days earlier were "found dead a few kilometres from the town", the source said.

Oil supply blockade

He said the attackers had accused the civilians of "being accomplices" of the Malian army.

A United Nations confirmed to AFP: "We have received reports that 14 civilian men have been executed. Hundreds of people have fled in the last 48 hours."

Two residents of Lere who escaped westwards to seek refuge in Mauritania told AFP the assailants had given locals "a 24-hour ultimatum" to leave the town and those who could not or who refused were either "murdered or taken hostage."

JNIM, a terrorist group, has blockaded Lere and other towns for the past two weeks and, since September, has stopped fuel tankers entering Mali from neighbouring countries.

Conditions

The UN official said the JNIM had accused Lere inhabitants of "not respecting the conditions they had set."

A security source based in Timbuktu, the main city in northern Mali, said "at least 10 people" had been killed, as did a soldier who travelled to Lere "to confirm the massacre."