Mali: seven Malian soldiers killed in separate attacks

Published on : 10/30/2021 – 21:59

Seven Malian soldiers were killed on Saturday in two separate attacks in Mali, a Sahelian country plagued by jihadist violence, the Malian army announced.

Five soldiers were killed when the vehicle in which they were traveling struck an artisanal mine near Ségou, about 200 km northeast of Bamako, and two others were killed in an ambush which also left three wounded near Mourdiah, in about 200 km north of the capital, the army said in a statement.

Seven Malian soldiers were killed on Saturday in two separate attacks in Mali, a Sahelian country plagued by jihadist violence, the army said.

Five soldiers circulating in a vehicle were all killed in the early afternoon when it struck an artisanal mine near Ségou, about 200 km northeast of Bamako, the army said in a statement.

“The sweeping of the area of ​​the incident allowed the arrest of two suspects, immediately made available to the gendarmerie”, according to the press release.

At the end of the morning, two soldiers had perished in an ambush which also left three wounded near Mourdiah, about 200 km north of the capital, said the army, which specifies that the results of this ambush are provisional.

Tense political context

Despite the interventions of the French Barkhane force, the UN and a joint force of five Sahelian countries, since 2013 in Mali at the request of the Malian government. Mali has been the scene since 2012 of jihadist violence, mixed with deadly inter-community conflicts.

From the north of the country, the violence has spread to the center of the country, especially since the appearance in 2015 of a jihadist group led by the Fulani preacher Amadou Koufa, but also in neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger.

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These attacks occur in a delicate political context in Mali. The transitional authorities dominated by the colonels behind two coups d’état, in August 2020 and May 2021, are showing more and more clearly their intentions to postpone the presidential and legislative elections scheduled from February 27.

The international community, especially the UN and ECOWAS in the lead, insists that these elections supposed to allow a reestablishment of civil power in a country plagued by a cycle of jihadist and inter-community violence be held within the set deadlines.

With AFP