File image.
On June 3, two UN peacekeepers were killed and another injured as a result of an attack with an improvised explosive device (IED) in central Mali.
Olivier Salgado, a spokesman for the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), said on Twitter that the deadly attack took place near the town of Douentza, on the road to Timbuktu.
The causalities were part of the Egyptian contingent of the peacekeeping mission. The Egyptian peacekeepers were reportedly in an escort of a dozen UN vehicles accompanying a convoy of civilian trucks carrying fuel when an IED blew up near them.
The deadly attack was condemned by the Under-Secretary-General for UN Peace Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, who vowed to punish the perpetrators.
“In what is yet again another cowardly attack against our peacekeepers, 2 brave Blue helmets from Egypt lost their lives today while serving for peace with the UN MINUSMA. These crimes are a blatant violation of international humanitarian law and shall not go unpunished,” Lacroix said on Twitter.
With 13,000 personnel from 65 nations, MINUSMA is one of the UN’s biggest, and most dangerous peacekeeping missions.
On June 1, a Jordanian peacekeeper was killed and three other were wounded when their convoy came under direct fire from suspected members of a terrorist group in Kidal, in northern Mali.
Following the withdrawal of France and its European allies from Mali in February, the Malian government began to rely more on the support of MINUSMA and Russian private military contractors to counter ISIS and other terrorist groups in the country.
