Four Chadian blue helmets were killed yesterday in Mali in an armed attack believed to be of jihadist origin on a field of the United Nations Minusma mission, condemned “with the utmost firmness” by the UN secretary general. There were also 19 injured. The attack, which brings the number of blue helmets killed in Mali since the beginning of the year to ten, hit the Minusma camp in Aguelhok at dawn, where a contingent of Chadian soldiers is present, just under 200 kilometers away. from the Algerian border.
The head of the UN, Antonio Guterres, “offers his most sincere condolences to the government and the people of Chad and offers his deep solidarity to the families and relatives of the victims”, said his spokesman, Ste’phane Dujarric, in a statement. the death of “four blue helmets of the Chadian contingent” and 19 wounded. A UN source who asked for anonymity spoke of a combined attack, involving mortars and an attempted suicide bombing with a vehicle “that has been brought under control”. “Twenty attackers were neutralized” (killed) out of “a hundred” involved, the same source said, adding that “the fighting lasted three hours”. Minusma denounced a “despicable terrorist attack”, assuring that “it will not undermine his determination”. Last January five blue helmets, including four Ivorians, were killed by the explosion of IEDs, and in February one of the 28 Togolese wounded in an attack on their camp later died of his injuries.
The Minusma peacekeeping mission, deployed in Mali since 2013 (15,000 men and women, of which about 12,000 soldiers), is currently the UN that has suffered the greatest number of casualties in the world, with over 140 killed in hostile acts, according to statistics from the United Nations themselves.
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