Mali: Another Terror Attack Kills 20 Soldiers
In Mali, about 20 soldiers were killed in a pre-dawn attack on an army camp in central Mali on Sunday.
According to the government, the identity of the attackers was not established yet.
“Terrorists” entered the camp near the village of Sokolo, killed the soldiers and caused “significant material damage,” the government said in a statement.
“Reinforcements have been dispatched to the scene and an aerial reconnaissance is underway in the area to track down the attackers,” it said.
Mali’s army has been struggling in the face of regular flare-ups of violence that have spread from the arid north to its center, an ethnically mixed and volatile region.
Northern Mali came under the control of al-Qaeda-linked fighters after Mali’s army failed to quash a rebellion there in 2012.
A French-led military campaign was launched against the fighters, pushing them back a year later.
The UN warned that the geographic focus of terrorist attacks has shifted eastwards from Mali to Burkina Faso and is increasingly threatening West African coastal states, with a bloody start in 2020. The number of attacks have increased fivefold in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger since 2016, and more than 4,000 deaths were reported in 2019, UN figures have revealed.
The rise in violence comes amid reports that the US is likely to reduce its military presence in the Sahel, as it refocuses on great power rivals as a more significant threat than terrorism.
The US currently has thousands of troops in the region and recently opened a major $100m air base in Niger.
A 15,000-strong UN peacekeeping force is currently stationed in Mali. It is to be joined later this year by a small detachment of British troops.
Earlier this month, French President Emmanuel Macron said more military resources will be sent to Mali this year.
Mali is also member of the G5-Sahel force, comprising troops from Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Chad. However efforts by the G5 have been hampered by insufficient funding, training and equipment.
