Bamako: A roadside bomb killed two UN peacekeeping troops in central Mali on Monday, the UN’s mission to the troubled Sahel country said.
“This morning, a supply convoy… struck an improvised explosive device north of Mopti,” MINUSMA spokesman Olivier Salgado said on Twitter, adding that four other peacekeepers were wounded. MINUSMA did not immediately give the nationalities of the casualties, but a security source said they were members of the force’s Egyptian contingent.
The mission’s chief, El-Ghassim Wane, vigorously condemned the attack and called on the Malian authorities “to spare no effort” in identifying those behind it. The incident comes as the United Nations is assessing the impact on MINUSMA from France’s decision to withdraw from Mali following a rift with its ruling junta. The 13,000-member mission is one of the UN’s biggest and most dangerous peacekeeping operations.
Its deployment began in 2013 to help shore up the fragile Sahel state in the face of militants attacks. The insurgency, born in the north of the country, spread two years later to the volatile centre and then to neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger. Diplomats in New York last month said the future of MINUSMA, whose annual mandate comes up for renewal in June, maybe compromised by recent developments in Mali.
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