The Red Bobo of Mali

The Red Bobo of Mali, numbering approximately 774,000 people, are Engaged yet Unreached. They are an ethnolinguistic community of Mali. They are an Indigenous people in the Gur people cluster of the Sub-Saharan African Peoples affinity bloc. Their primary language is Bomu and their primary religion is Animism.

Photo by Google. (2026). Image generated by Gemini 2.5 Flash: Red Bobo

Fast Facts:

Affinity Group: Sub-Saharan African Peoples
Country: Mali
People Cluster: Gur
Primary Language(s): Bomu (bmq)
Primary Religion(s): Animism
Population: 774,000
Strategic Progress Index (SPI): Engaged yet Unreached
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): Less than 2% Evangelical, No Recent CP Activity
People Group ID: PG013564
View on Joshua Project

Pray for the Red Bobo of Mali

Join others around the world in praying for the lost to be saved, the gospel to advance, the global Church to grow, and for laborers to be sent out and sustained in the harvest.

Dig Deeper (Religion):

Primary Religion: Animism
Religious Affiliation: Ethnoreligion

55%
%

Dig Deeper (Language):

Primary Language: Bomu
Language Family: Atlantic-Congo

100%
%

Media Resources in Bomu:

Films:

No language code (ROL) found for this post.

Bible Resources in Bomu:

The filter value is not set for this post.

Or check out the Bomu bible at Bible.com

Linked from YouVersion

Explore Lostness and Next Steps

Unengaged and Unreached

Strategic Priority Index (SPI): Unengaged and Unreached (SPI: 1), which means there are less than 2% evangelical Christian populations among which there are no known efforts focused on establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.
Lostness Priority Index (LPI): Frontier Unreached People Group, (LPI: 0), < 0.1% Evangelical.
Global Status of Evangelical Christianity (GSEC): Less than 2% Evangelical, No Recent CP Activity (GSEC: 1), this people group is less than 2% evangelical, some evangelical resources are available, but there has been no active church planting among them within the past two years

Next steps for the Red Bobo:
Begin signifcant prayer and fasting for this group
Send cross-cultural teams to discover and research this people group
Begin gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group

SPI: Unreached yet Engaged

The Red Bobo are Engaged yet Unreached, which means there are less than 2% evangelical Christian populations but there are sustained efforts at establishing self-sustaining churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice.

Next steps for the Red Bobo:
Continue prayer and fasting for this group
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting among this group
Begin training up local leaders to lead and develop strategies to reach their own people

SPI: No longer Unreached

The Red Bobo are No Longer Unreached, which means there are more than 2% evangelical Christian populations and there are churches consistent with evangelical faith and practice. There is still more to be done among them.

Next steps for the Red Bobo:
Empower local believers to begin praying for their own people
Continue gospel seed sowing and church planting
Encourage local leaders to being leading church planting strategy and looking for Unreached and Unengaged groups nearby

Pray specifically for the Red Bobo of Mali

These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self- made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.
readColossians 2:23

Pray for those without Christ, that they will see the emptiness of human traditions and turn to the truth and grace found in Jesus.

And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.
readActs 6:7

Pray that the Word of God will be increasingly available to these people in ways they will resonate with so that all may have a chance to respond to the good news of Jesus Christ.

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
readColossians 2:6-7

Pray that as people place their faith in Christ, they will be rooted and built up in Him, abounding in thanksgiving for the grace and mercy He has shown them.

For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.
readRomans 12:4-5

Ask God to send believers to people in other cultures and to help them use their gifts in harmony with others so that the body of Christ may be built up.

Bwa (Bomu) Across Countries (ROP3 - 101820) reported in the following countries:

To download a comprehensive people group list in spreadsheet form, visit our Research Data page.

Peoplegroups.org relies on updates from the field and other organizations for much of our data, so if you have any updates, please contact us. We use various international naming standards. For a list of these standards and fields, visit our Definitions page.

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