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An investigation into a string of beheadings in southern Mali that has shocked the Sahelian state has yielded a breakthrough, judicial and police sources said Monday.
In the cotton-producing town of Juana, 10 people have been beheaded since 2018, raising fears of ritual killings.
“We have arrested the main suspect,” district prosecutor Boubacar Moussa Diarra told AFP by telephone.
He is a 42-year-old unemployed Malian with no fixed address.
“The details of the crime he provided corresponded to the nature of the murder,” he said.
An unnamed police officer said the suspect was arrested a year ago but just confessed to a gruesome murder last week.
Neither the public prosecutor nor police officials revealed a possible motive for the crime.
The victims included an ex-soldier, a housewife, a 5-year-old albino child, and a 2-year-old girl, who apparently had nothing in common.
In most cases, their heads were found but their blood was taken, raising concerns about ritual killings and requests to local police departments that were responded to in 2019.
Local officials have cautioned against theories surrounding the killings and stressed that the investigation is ongoing.
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