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MALI-CONFLICT
Two Malian troops, two civilians killed by roadside bombs
BAMAKO, Dec 21, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Two soldiers and two civilians have been
killed and another six people injured in separate roadside-bomb attacks this
week in volatile central Mali, local government and security officials said
on Friday.
The two civilian victims were women travelling by cart near the town of
Mondoro in the West African country’s central Mopti region, according to a
local official.
The women were not far from the border with Burkina Faso on Thursday when
their cart hit a roadside bomb.
Two children also aboard were “seriously injured” in the attack, a hospital
worker said.
Two Malian soldiers were also killed on Wednesday about 50 kilometres (30
miles) north of Mondoro, a security official said, after they hit a roadside
bomb near the town of Hombori.
Four soldiers were also wounded in the attack, the official added.
Mali has been struggling to contain an Islamist insurgency that erupted in
the north in 2012, and which has claimed thousands of military and civilian
lives since.
Despite some 4,500 French troops in the Sahel region, plus a 13,000-strong
UN peacekeeping force in Mali, the conflict has engulfed the centre of the
country and spread to neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.
Mondoro residents interviewed by AFP said they felt increasingly threatened
by jihadists.
“They often don’t allow us to enter or leave the town,” said a local
official who declined to be named, adding that the Malian army hardly patrols
the countryside.
Hiding homemade bombs under well-travelled roads is a frequent means of
attack used by jihadists. Otherwise known as improvised explosive devices,
they kill and maim scores of victims every year in Mali.
BSS/AFP/GMR/0909 hrs