On Saturday, one of the UN peacekeepers was killed in Mali, when a convoy carrying five UN peacekeeping personnel detonated an explosive device, United Nations’ force in Mali reported. Four people were severely wounded in the incident.
Earlier this week, five Malian gendarmes were killed in an attack on their mining convoy in southern Mali. A group linked to al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack in southern Mali. The latest incident took place near the town of Tessalit.
Ambush attacks targeting international troops and others are common in this area of Mali. The attacks are often launched by Islamist militants and other groups. Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger are countries with an increased presence of international forces. In the attacks that have happened in these areas in the past years, thousands of civilians were murdered and millions were shifted.
The head of the U.N. mission MINUSMA, El Ghassim Wane, said in a statement that the incident reminded everyone of the sad reality of permanent danger that hung over their peacekeepers.
More than 13,000 military troops were deployed in the northern and central regions of the country, to contain and control the violence carried out by the armed militant groups, by the MINUSMA mission. Since 2013, the mission has reported 255 deaths in the north and centre of Mali. MINUSMA is one of the missions with the most fatality records in more than a dozen peacekeeping missions run by the United Nations.
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