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The clash under the influence took place during the night of December 24-25 at a base in Gao, eastern Mali.
PARIS – A French soldier deployed to Mali as part of Barkhane’s force fighting jihadist insurgents wounded two comrades with a pistol while they were drunk, army headquarters said on Saturday.
The clash under the influence took place during the night of December 24-25 at a base in Gao, eastern Mali.
“Two soldiers from the same unit were getting on their nerves. One soldier wounded two of his comrades with his service weapon,” Army spokesman Frederic Barbry told AFP, an automatic pistol.
One of the two men was very slightly injured, while the other’s injury was more serious but not life-threatening.
Both were airlifted after the shooting and taken to hospital in France.
Military police are investigating the incident and “after the investigation is complete, (the shooter) will return home,” Barbry said.
Barkhane’s French force has 5,100 soldiers spread across the arid Sahel region and has been fighting jihadist groups alongside soldiers from Mauritania, Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, who together form the G5 Sahel group.
Paris is weighing cuts in the number of soldiers deployed to the region ahead of a summit scheduled for mid-February.
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