A military official, who requested anonymity, said that villagers had been returning from a weekly market in the Douentza region in the centre of the country on Sunday when they were attacked by armed men riding motorbikes.

He added that six people died in the attack and 13 were wounded, of whom five were seriously injured.

A local politician, who also declined to be named, confirmed the death toll to AFP.

Mali has been struggling to contain an Islamist insurgency that first erupted in 2012, and which has claimed thousands of military and civilian lives.

Despite the presence of thousands of French and UN troops, the conflict has engulfed the centre of the country and spread to neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.

Central Mali has become the epicentre of the Sahel-wide conflict, where ethnic killings and attacks on government forces are frequent.

On Friday, militants killed seven soldiers near the village of Boni in central Mali. Ten Malian troops were also killed in Boni in February.

Separately on Friday, 13 UN peacekeepers were also wounded in a car-bomb attack in northern Mali.