#Mali : Four peacekeepers from the United Nations mission (Minusma) in Mali were injured on Wednesday in the attack on their convoy in Kidal (north), the UN announced.
“This morning, four Minusma peacekeepers were injured repelling a terrorist attack in Kidal,” Minusma spokesman Olivier Salgado said in a tweet. “Their convoy came under direct small arms and RPG (rocket launcher) fire for about an hour,” he added.
No details were provided on the alleged perpetrators of this attack.
With some 13,000 soldiers, Minusma, created in 2013 to support the Malian political process, is the UN’s deadliest peacekeeping mission. A total of 171 of its peacekeepers died in attacks, according to the mission.
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Mali, a poor and landlocked country in the heart of the Sahel, was the scene of two military coups in August 2020 and May 2021. The political crisis goes hand in hand with a serious security crisis that has been ongoing since 2012 and the outbreak of separatist and jihadist insurgencies in the north.
The country is now ruled by a junta that has turned away from France and its partners, and has turned to Russia in an attempt to stem the spread of jihadism that has spread to the center and neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger. .
This violence caused thousands of civilian and military deaths as well as hundreds of thousands of displaced persons.