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Four members of the UN peacekeepers were killed and several injured in a terrorist attack on their base in northern Mali on Friday.
The UN mission in Mali (MINUSMA) said late Friday that the attack was carried out against a base of about a hundred armed terrorists against a base in the town of Aguelhok.
First they put the base under mine fire, then they wanted to blow up a car loaded with explosives, and only then did they launch a direct attack. In the three-hour confrontation, the peacekeepers ended up with a score of attackers.
So far no one has claimed to be the perpetrator of the attack, but Islamist militants linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have become more active in the Sahel in recent years.
In an attack on a military post in central Mali, also on Friday, three Malian soldiers were killed and 17 wounded. The Malian air force destroyed the attackers’ four weapons-laden vehicles and killed 10 attackers.
In mid-February, more than 20 UN detainees were injured in an attack on their base in central Mali. In January, five peacekeepers were killed in hellish murders.
UN peacekeepers have been present in the West African country since 2013. Currently, there are more than 13,000 peacekeepers. The UN has more than a dozen peacekeeping missions around the world, and MINUSMA is the most dangerous of them, with most dying in acts of violence.
Over the course of eight years, some 230 of the soldiers serving in MINUSMA have died.
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