Forty Malian soldiers are dead or missing after an attack allegedly carried out by jihadists in central Mali, military officials said on Monday (June 15th).

A military convoy made up of a dozen vehicles was attacked Sunday in the locality of Bouka Weré, southeast of Diabaly, about a hundred kilometers from the Mauritanian border, a military official said on condition of anonymity .

Ongoing research

Some of the vehicles managed to evade the assault, but of the 64 soldiers who were in the convoy, only twenty answered the call, he said without quantifying the number of dead. "Research is underway to find out the fate of the missing soldiers," he added.

The information was corroborated by another military official and an elected official from Diabaly also speaking on condition of anonymity.

This is the latest attack by the jihadists against the armed forces in Mali, but also in neighboring countries. They have caused the deaths of hundreds of soldiers in the past few months.

Mali has been plagued since 2012 by a deep and multifaceted crisis, which has left thousands of civilians and combatants dead and hundreds of thousands displaced, despite the international community's support for the Malian state and the intervention UN, African and French forces.

With AFP

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