About 49 Civilians and 15 Soldiers Killed In Mali Attack

Eko Hot Blog reports that about 49 civilians and 15 soldiers were killed by the Islamist militants in Mali.

 

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The militant group attacked a military camp and a vessel in northeastern Mali on Thursday, the interim government said.

According to a television broadcast, the military government in Mali said many were wounded, but the death toll was provisional.

The insurgents attacked a vessel traveling from Gao conveying civilians across the flooded plains that separate the towns of Gao and Mopti.

The assailants also attacked a military camp in the Bourem Circle, an administrative subdivision of the Gao region in Mali’s northeast.

The military killed about 50 assailants in the counter-attack against its base.

The interim government has declared three days of national mourning.

Mali is, reportedly, one of the West African countries battling insurgency with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State that took root in its arid north in 2012.

The militants have spread across the Sahel and to coastal West African nations, despite international efforts to support local troops in combatting the group.

Thousands have been killed and over six million persons have been displaced internally in different regions of the Sahel and the south of Sahara.

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The exasperation of growing insecurity has spurred two military takeovers in Mali and two in Burkina Faso since 2020 totaling four of eight coups to hit West and Central Africa in the last three years.

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