Peacekeepers killed in two attacks in Mali

UN peacekeepers were killed and several others wounded in two attacks in central and northern Mali on Saturday.

The UN peacekeeping mission in the country, Minusma, said its Blue Helmets had repelled a complex attack at dawn at its base in Ber, in the Timbuktu region, launched from several trucks armed with rocket launchers, machine guns and other explosives.

A second attack in Konna, in the central Mopti region, involved an improvised explosive device (IED).

The Burkina Faso army confirmed that two of its peacekeepers had been killed in the Ber attack, with five wounded.

The UN has deployed about 12,000 troops and police in its Minusma peacekeeping mission in Mali, which ranks as the most dangerous for blue helmets.

“I strongly condemn this brutal attack, which will not dent our determination to support Mali in its march towards peace,” said Minusma chief Mahamat Saleh Annadif in the statement, adding that attacks against peacekeepers could constitute war crimes.

Mali has been struggling to return to stability after Islamic extremists linked to al-Qaeda jihadists took control of the north of the country in early 2012, prompting France to intervene militarily. The extremists were routed in a French-led military operation in 2013 but large stretches of the landlocked Sahel state remain out of government control.

In central Mali, the situation has been made even more unstable by a resurgence of violence between ethnic groups, notably Fulani nomadic herders and Dogon farmers over access to land.

Mali on Thursday extended by a year a state of emergency in place since a deadly November 2015 attack on a top hotel in the capital Bamako which claimed 20 lives. The state of emergency was due to expire at the end of this month.

It gives authorities greater powers to take measures to preempt attacks and accords more powers to security forces and judicial authorities, the government said.