In a rare attack near Mali’s capital, gunmen kill five people

According to Mali’s security minister, five people were killed Monday when armed men attacked a civil defence post in a rare attack close to the capital.

The defence installation was attacked Monday night in the small southwest town of Markacoungo, which is just 80 kilometres from the country’s capital, Bamako, according to Mali’s security ministry.

Two members of the civil defence force and three civilians were murdered in the attack, the ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

It stated that Mali’s security forces were making every effort to locate and detain the attackers and urged the public to work with them. The Monday attack has not yet been assigned a perpetrator by any group.

Markacoungo is on a major road northeast of Bamako, which is an area that rarely sees attacks like these.

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Although attacks in the south are on the rise, the north and centre of Mali have seen the most of the country’s violence during the country’s ten-year battle with Islamist extremists.

An attack on a checkpoint in July that took place 70 kilometres from Bamako resulted in the deaths of six individuals. A week later, the biggest military camp in Mali was attacked, and it was only 15 kilometres away from the capital.

The incident, which al-QQaida’s in Mali claimed responsibility for, claimed one soldier as a victim and was in retaliation for the military government’s collaboration with Russian mercenaries.

Following a coup in August 2020, the military has been in charge of Mali.

The military administration of Mali has denied collaborating with the Wagner Group, a for-profit Russian military organisation with connections to the Kremlin, and has stated that it only employs authorised Russian instructors.

Due to worries over Mali’s cooperation with the Wagner Group, French forces that had been assisting in the war against Islamist terrorists in northern Mali since 2013 left last year.

The mercenaries have been charged by U.N. experts with serious human rights violations in the nations where they operate, including the Central African Republic, Libya, Sudan, Syria, and Ukraine.

MINUSMA, the U.N. peacekeeping force in Mali, has also been operating there since 2013, but has had challenges ever since the military coup.

The mission has been suspended by a number of member nations, including Britain and the Ivory Coast.

In July, Mali seized 46 Ivorian soldiers and declared them to be mercenaries. According to Ivory Coast, they were engaged in a peacekeeping mission.

The soldiers were given a 20-year prison term by a Malian court on Friday for allegedly attempting a coup. When the Ivorian peacekeepers arrived at the airport in Bamako on July 10, they were first detained like the other soldiers but were eventually freed.

West African chiefs gave Mali until January 1 to release the Ivorian soldiers or face penalties.