PARIS, Jan 3, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – Two French soldiers were killed when their
vehicle hit an improvised explosive device in northeastern Mali on Saturday,
just days after three others died in similar fashion, the French presidency
announced.
President Emmanuel Macron “learnt with great sadness” of the deaths of
Sergeant Yvonne Huynh and Brigadier Loic Risser in the Menaka region, his
office said in a statement.
Huynh, aged 33, was the first woman soldier sent to the Sahel region since
the French operation began.
Risser was 24. Both were members of a regiment specialising in intelligence
work.
According to the army, the latest deaths bring to 50 the number of French
soldiers killed in Mali since France first intervened militarily in January
2013 to help drive back Islamist jihadists who had overrun parts of the west
African country.
France’s Barkhane force numbers 5,100 troops spread across the arid Sahel
region and has been fighting jihadist groups alongside soldiers from
Mauritania, Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, who together make up the G5
Sahel group.
“Their vehicle hit an improvised explosive device during an intelligence
mission,” the French presidency said of Saturday’s incident.
Another soldier was injured in the blast but their life is not in danger,
it added.
Macron affirmed France’s determination to continue its role in “the battle
against terrorism”.
The Al-Qaeda-linked Group to Support Islam and Muslims (GSIM) has claimed
responsibility for the earlier attack that killed three French soldiers in
the centre of the poor Sahel state. Those deaths were also due to an army
vehicle hitting an explosive device.
The group, the main jihadist alliance in the Sahel, cited a string of
reasons for the attack including the continuing French military presence in
the region, cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed published by a French newspaper
and Macron’s defence of them in the name of freedom of expression.