Thousands of people have rallied in Mali's capital, Bamako, to protest against President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita's failure to stem a surge of intercommunal violence in the center of the country.

Axar.az reports citing AlJazeera.

The demonstration on Friday was called for by Muslim religious leaders, opposition parties and civil society groups, including organizations representing the majority-Muslim Fulani herding community.

Organizers said 15,000 people were part of the march and a mass prayer ceremony, which came nearly two weeks after last month's massacre of at least 153 people in the Fulani village of Ogossagou, near the town of Mopti in central Mali.

Police put the number of demonstrators at 10,000.

The killings in Ogossagou, which left the charred bodies of women and children smoldering in their homes, shocked a population that has grown increasingly frustrated by the failure of government forces to protect them from both armed groups onslaughts and ethnic reprisals.

The March 23 massacre was allegedly carried out by members of the Dogon ethnic group - a hunting and farming community with a long history of tension with the nomadic Fulani over access to land.

Keita, also known by his initials IBK, responded to the attack on the Fulani villagers by sacking and replacing two generals and disbanding a vigilante group, whose fighters are suspected of being behind the killings.