The United Nations Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) announced that it had lost two soldiers on Monday after an improvised explosive device exploded near Mopti
“This morning, a MINUSMA logistics convoy hit an improvised explosive device north of Mopti. According to an initial report, the explosion caused the death of two peacekeepers, four others were injured,” the force’s spokesman Olivier Salgado said.
The head of the UN mission El-Ghassim Wane “strongly condemned this attack” in a statement Monday, before calling on “the Malian authorities to spare no effort to identify the perpetrators of these attacks.
With some 13,000 soldiers, MINUSMA, created in 2013 to support the Malian political process, continues its peacekeeping mission in the country despite the departure of French anti-terrorist forces under Operation Barkhane.
The latest incident comes at a time when in the village of Mondoro in the same region, nearly thirty Malian soldiers were killed in an attack on their camp by armed groups last Friday.
The scale of the carnage led Colonel Assimi Goïta, President of the transition, to declare three days of national mourning which ended on Monday.
The military response, by “neutralising seventy terrorists.
Although the general staff said the Malian armed forces “continue to consolidate the gains of their vigorous response against the coalition of armed militias in disarray,” jihadist attacks continue in localities across the country such as N’Tahaka, Gao, in the north.
ODL/cgd/lb/as/APA