Malian military says 24 soldiers killed in armed attack

The Malian military has said Monday that 24 soldiers had been killed in an ambush by unidentified gunmen at the center of Mali.

Gunmen killed 24 Malian soldiers in an ambush on their convoy in central Mali on Monday, a spokesperson for the West African nation’s army said.

“Twenty-four Malian military personnel died, eight survivors have been found,” Colonel Diarran Kone told Reuters.

The attack is the deadliest since a November 2019 attack when 53 soldiers were killed during an assault on an army post in the north of the country.

UN forces have been involved in Mali, United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and the French military since mid-2013, but have not performed well in stabilizing the country, and terrorist threats remain in Mali.

The northern and central Malian regions have witnessed bloody violence in recent months.

Mali has been entangled by coups and insecurity since 2012, followed by the rise of terrorist groups.