At least 27 soldiers lost their lives and 33 got injured in a rebel attack on an army base in central Mali on Friday, reported Reuters.
According to a statement released by the Malian government, the whereabouts of seven soldiers remained unknown following the complex attack in the rural commune of Mondoro, which involved car bombs.
The statement added that seventy militants were killed in the military’s response, without specifying which militant group was responsible. Notably, both al Qaeda and Islamic State militant groups are active in central Mali.
Mali has been struggling to fight an Islamist insurgency since al Qaeda-linked militants seized its desert north in 2012. The militant groups have seized vast swaths of the Malian countryside, while also expanding into Niger, Burkina Faso and other neighboring countries, prompting a French military intervention.
Thousands of people have been killed and more than two million people displaced in the violence so far. Last year alone, armed groups carried out more than 800 deadly attacks. Rebels fighting the Malian state and foreign forces had previously targeted the Mondoro base, which is located near Mali’s border with Burkina Faso, in September 2019, killing about 50 soldiers.
Friday’s attack follows the French government’s decision to withdraw from Mali due to the arrival of Russian instructors, which the West says are Wagner mercenaries.
Diplomatic relations between the military junta of Mali and the French government have deteriorated in recent months as West Africa’s regional bloc imposed harsh sanctions on the Malian government’s delay to return to civilian rule.
On Friday, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali said it was investigating allegations that dozens of people were massacred in the center of the country.
Olivier Salgado, the spokesman for the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali, said the mission’s human rights division was investigating the deaths.
