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MALI-UNREST
Malian policeman killed in overnight attack
BAMAKO, Feb 10, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – A policeman was killed Monday in an
overnight attack in western Mali, the country’s security minister said, in
fresh violence to hit the war-torn Sahel state.
Armed men attacked a gendarmerie post at Diema near the border with
Mauritania, Security Minister Salif Traore said.
A gendarme — a member of a police force under military control — was
killed.
Traore added that security forces fought off the attack and the bodies of
two assailants had been discovered.
Mali government spokesman Yaya Sangare said on social media that
authorities dispatched special forces troops who repulsed the attack. The
government also sent warplanes to the area, he added.
It was not immediately clear who carried out the assault.
Last month, a toll station in Diema, which lies on the major trading road
between Senegal and Mali, was attacked. Two civilians were killed.
Mali has been struggling to quell an Islamist insurgency that erupted in
the north in 2012 and has since claimed thousands of military and civilian
lives.
The conflict has spread to central Mali, as well as neighbouring Burkina
Faso and Niger, but the west of the country has so far been largely spared.
BSS/AFP/RY/1842 hrs