At least seven UN peacekeepers in a convoy withdrawing from a rebel stronghold in northern Mali have been wounded when vehicles hit improvised explosive devices, the United Nations said Friday.
The victims were evacuated by air following the incident on Friday, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
He said eight other peacekeepers injured in another incident on Wednesday “are now reported to be in stable condition.”
Dujarric said the peacekeepers, who were withdrawing weeks earlier than planned because of growing insecurity, suffered two other IED attacks after leaving their base in Kidal on October 31.
Unprecedented exit
Dujarric said the UN doesn’t know if the IEDs that hit the convoy had been there for a long time or whether the peacekeepers were deliberately targeted. The convoy is heading to Gao on the east bank of the Niger River, and “it’s clear what road they will use,” he said.
He said the UN hoped the convoy would complete the estimated 350-kilometer (220-mile) journey to Gao, a staging point for peacekeeping departures, by the end of the weekend.
In June, Mali’s military junta, which overthrew the democratically elected president in 2021, ordered the nearly the nearly 15,000-strong UN peacekeeping force known as MINUSMA to leave after a decade of working on stemming an insurgency.
The UN Security Council terminated the mission’s mandate June 30 and the UN is in the throes of what Secretary-General António Guterres calls an “unprecedented” six-month exit from Mali by December 31.
'No flights for UN'
MINUSMA was one of the most dangerous UN peacekeeping operations in the world, with more than 300 members killed since operations began in 2013.
About 850 UN peacekeepers had been based in Kidal along with 150 other mission personnel.
An employee with MINUSMA earlier told The Associated Press that the peacekeepers left Kidal in convoys after Mali’s junta refused to authorise flights to repatriate UN equipment and civilian personnel.
Although noting the junta allowed the medical evacuation flights, Dujarric said, “We’re not operating as many flights as we should be able to operate in order to up the safety of our peacekeepers who are moving on the ground.”
