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UN peacekeepers on patrol
- Four members of the peacekeepers were killed during an attack in Mali.
- The attack was allegedly carried out by “several heavily armed terrorists.”
- The attack occurred 200 kilometers from the border with Algeria.
The United Nations mission in Mali (MINUSMA) has said that four peacekeepers were killed and several more injured in an attack on its base in the northern city of Aguelhok.
Peacekeepers repelled the attack on the field that was carried out by several “heavily armed terrorists,” MINUSMA said in a statement on Friday, adding that the attackers suffered heavy losses, including several deaths.
“A provisional toll shows four dead blue helmets,” the statement said, adding that the wounded were evacuated by helicopter.
A MINUSMA source told AFP news agency that the attack occurred about 200 kilometers (120 miles) from the Algerian border and targeted a contingent of Chadian peacekeepers.
The peacekeeping mission, established in 2013, has around 13,000 peacekeepers from various countries operating at the center of a complicated and multi-layered conflict that has swept across the western part of the Sahel, a semi-arid region directly south of the Sahara desert.
More than 190 peacekeepers have died in the country, including nearly 120 killed by hostile actions, making Mali the “most dangerous” peacekeeping operation in the UN.
Mali has been affected by a brutal conflict that started as a separatist movement in the north, but grew into a multitude of armed groups fighting for control in the central and northern regions of the country.
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Violence has spread to Burkina Faso and Niger, and fighters linked to ISIL (ISIS) and al-Qaeda exploit the poverty of marginalized communities and inflame tensions between ethnic groups.
The “triple border” region, the three-country point linking Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, has seen the heaviest fighting in a worsening conflict that has triggered a major humanitarian crisis.
The attacks increased fivefold between 2016 and 2020, with 4,000 people killed in the three countries last year, up from 770 in 2016, according to the United Nations.
In February, French President Emmanuel Macron ruled out an immediate reduction of France’s 5,100 Barkhane forces fighting armed groups in the Sahel, describing a hasty departure as a mistake.
Last month, about 100 truck and motorcycle assailants launched an attack on a military post in the town of Tessit, near Mali’s border with Burkina Faso and Niger, killing at least 33 soldiers, according to the army.
Twenty attackers were killed in the attack, the army said.
