Five Malian soldiers were killed and eight wounded in the explosion of an artisanal mine between Bandiagara and Bankass in central Mali, the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) said on the official website Wednesday.
“The FAMa responded vigorously to a complex attack at the EEI (improvised explosive device) in the late morning of Wednesday. The provisional toll is 5 deaths and 8 injured on the side of the FAMa,” FAMa said. According to military sources, material damage is also significant.
Last Saturday, a peacekeeper of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) was killed and 4 were seriously injured following the explosion of an artisanal mine hit by a mission vehicle near Tessalit (Kidal region) in northeastern Mali.
On Sept. 28, five agents of the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (GIGN) were killed and four wounded in a terrorist attack targeting a convoy of a mining company in the west of the country. During this attack 4 terrorists were killed by FAMa.
Since 2012, Mali has been facing a deep and multifaceted crisis on the security, politics and economy levels. The independence insurrections, the jihadist incursions and the inter-communal violence have caused thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of displaced, despite the presence of UN (MINUSMA), French (Barkhane) and European (Takuba) forces. Enditem
