Two UN peacekeepers from Burkina Faso were killed in a suicide car bombing in northern Mali on Saturday, UN and Mali security sources said.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was “deeply saddened” by the deaths and the wounding of at least seven other peacekeepers in Ber, a village in Mali’s Timbuktu region.
“Jihadists carried out a car bombing at the MINUSMA [United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali] camp in Ber on Saturday,” a Mali security source said.
One of the peacekeepers died immediately, while the other succumbed later to injuries he received during the attack, a MINUSMA source said.
The car carrying the bomb entered the camp “at high speed ... there was a huge explosion,” the source added.
Mali descended into crisis in January 2012, when Tuareg separatists, who have waged a long-running, low-level insurgency, mounted a string of attacks that the Malian army was ill-equipped to defend.
A military coup in Bamako led to further chaos as Islamist extremists seized the north of Mali.
A French-led military operation launched in January last year ousted the extremists.
However, periodic attacks have resumed.
UN peacekeepers took over security duties from African troops in Mali in July last year, with a mission to ensure stability in the conflict-scarred nation after extremist groups occupied much of the north of the country.
“Such attacks will not deter the United Nations from its efforts to support the Malian people in their search for peace in their country,” a spokesman for Ban said in a statement.
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