Five United Nations peacekeepers were killed and one other seriously injured in an ambush in central Mali on Sunday. Two days ago five Malian soldiers were killed near the town of Gao.
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The MINUSMA was deployed in Mali in July 2013; it has over 11,700 peacekeepers in the West African state.
“I condemn in the strongest terms this despicable crime in addition to other terrorist acts that targeted our peacekeepers, which constitute crimes against humanity under worldwide law. Another has been gravely wounded and his evacuation is underway”, the statement said. Militants have staged a series of high profile attacks in the past year, mainly in the north of the country, but also in neighboring Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast. The fact that it occurred on the day set aside for the global community to honor United Nations peacekeepers makes the attack all the more shocking.
He said “every effort will be done to identify the perpetrators of the odious crime”.
MINUSMA head Mahamat Saleh Annadif described the attacks as a “heinous act of terrorism”.
“This heinous act of terrorism is even more shocking [as] it was perpetrated there during International Day of Peacekeepers”, Annadif added, while speaking at the annual commemoration to mark the day for peackeepers.
The Mopti region is known to be a stronghold for the Macina Liberation Front, which is said to have ties to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.
The attack is the first time the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali, MINUSMA, has recorded fatalities in the centre of a country long beset by violence in its vast and desolate north. Troops have remained the target of bombings and hit-and-runs on a weekly basis.
No group has said it carried out the latest attack.
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Finally, he stressed that the MINUSMA is more committed than ever to pursue its mission in support of Mali and its people. Currently, no information regarding the suspects has been provided.
