The latest setback for the most deadly UN peacekeeping force in the world saw at least three UN peacekeepers murdered and five critically injured in central Mali when their convoy collided with a roadside bomb.
In a tweet, the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali reported that on Tuesday, one of its convoys had collided with an IED.
It was noted that the figure was provisional and left out information regarding the nationalities of those who had died and been injured.
A conflict that started as a northern separatist movement in 2012 has plagued Mali ever since. Several armed groups are now fighting for control of the country’s central and northern regions.
As the security situation in the area worsens, fighting has moved to neighboring nations like Burkina Faso and Niger, sparking a humanitarian crisis.
Several of the armed organizations are affiliated with ISIL and al-Qaeda.
With more than 13,500 soldiers and police, the UN mission in Mali, which was established in 2013, is one of the largest peacekeeping deployments by the international organization.
Nonetheless, a considerable number of people have died there, mostly as a result of roadside bombings. There have been at least 281 deaths of peacekeepers.
Following months of large-scale protests against alleged corruption and deteriorating security, democratically elected President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was overthrown in a military takeover in August 2020.
As relations with France, Mali’s longtime ally and former colonial power, plummeted, the military administration became closer to the Kremlin and imported Russian paramilitaries and weaponry.
Last year, France withdrew its final troops from Mali.
The military administration in Bamako frequently asserts that since it has turned its attention to Moscow, it is gaining the upper hand over the rebels.
It complained on Monday after Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, claimed that the Malian state was “collapsing” and that the rebels were encroaching farther.
