BAMAKO, June 14, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Armed men have killed two UN
peacekeepers in a region of northwestern Mali wracked by jihadist
violence, the United Nations said Sunday.
A logistical convoy of the UN peacekeeping mission travelling
between the towns of Tessalit and Gao was attacked Saturday evening by
“unidentified armed individuals” who killed two of the soldiers, the
mission, known as MINUSMA, said in a statement.
It did not indicate the nationalities of those killed.
The convoy had stopped when it was attacked near the village of
Tarkint, northeast of Gao, the largest town in northern Mali.
The UN troops “retaliated firmly and sent the assailants fleeing”,
the statement said.
The head of the peacekeeping mission, Mahamat Saleh Annadif,
condemned the “cowardly acts aimed at paralysing the mission’s
operations on the ground.”
“We will have to work together to identify and apprehend those
responsible for these terrorist acts so that they can be held
accountable for their crimes before the courts,” the statement quoted
him as saying.
The MINUSMA has some 13,000 troops drawn from several nations
deployed across the vast semi-arid country.
Mali is struggling to contain an Islamist insurgency that erupted in
2012 and which has claimed thousands of military and civilian lives
since.
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 to the west.