Four members of Mali’s armed forces were killed Sunday in an attack on jihadists in northeastern Bamako, near the border with Mauritania, the general staff said on social media.
The soldiers, who were serving in Gire, Nara district, “strongly repulsed an attack by a group of armed terrorists,” the staff said, using its usual terminology for jihadists operating in the area.
He spoke of four soldiers being killed and fourteen wounded, as well as six dead in the ranks of the attackers.
From 2012 onwards, Mali is torn apart by the activities of organizations swearing allegiance to either Al Qaeda or Islamic State, the violence of paramilitary “defense” organizations, and gangs of thugs. Regular forces are also accused of atrocities.
Thousands of civilians and soldiers have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced by the violence. Initially, it affected mainly the north, before the crisis gradually spread to the central part of the Sahel country as well as neighboring states, Burkina Faso and Niger, despite the intervention of the French Barhan mission, UN forces and the joint G5 Sahel mission.
The military takeover of Bamako by the 2020 coup was anything but de-escalating violence.
.
