The report established Wednesday August 10 makes it the deadliest jihadist attack against soldiers in Mali since the series of attacks at the end of 2019-beginning of 2020 perpetrated by the Islamic State (IS) group.
On Sunday August 7, at least 42 members of the Malian armed forces were killed in the Tessit area, near the borders of Burkina Faso and Niger.
This new assessment comes from an official document listing the deceased soldiers, authenticated Wednesday by several senior military officials to AFP.
The previous report counted 17 soldiers and 4 civilians killed.
Sunday's attack comes as Mali, which pushed its French ally out and relaunched cooperation with Moscow, has for some weeks been facing a resurgence of assaults from the nebula of the Support Group for Islam and to Muslims (GSIM, affiliated with Al-Qaeda).
Among the four civilians killed, some of them were local elected officials, relatives of the victims told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The official statement also claimed that seven "enemies" had died in the attack - attackers "presumably from the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (EIGS) and benefiting from drone and artillery support with the use of explosives and vehicle bombs". .
"Three Borders"
The Tessit area is frequently the scene of clashes and attacks, located on the Malian side of the so-called "three borders" area, in a huge rural region not controlled by the state.
The armed groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda, gathered under the leadership of the GSIM, have been fighting there since 2020 the group EIGS, affiliated with the EI organization.
The jihadists seek to take control of this strategic and gold-bearing area.
The Malian army, installed in a military camp near the town of Tessit, has often been taken to task in this region.
In March 2021, 33 Tessit relief soldiers were killed in an ambush claimed by EIGS.
In this area sometimes called the "Malian Gourma" also operate peacekeepers from the UN mission in Mali.
Civilians, as elsewhere in Mali, are caught in the crossfire of the actors in the conflict, and often accused of being allies with one when they are not with the other.
In February, around forty of them were killed by the EIGS in Tessit, accused of complicity with Al-Qaeda.
The inhabitants of the area, regularly cut off from the telephone network for several years and all the more landlocked in the rainy season, have fled by the thousands, in particular to the large neighboring town of Gao, 150 km to the north.
Wave of attacks in 2019-2020
This area of the "three borders" had previously been the scene, at the end of 2019-beginning of 2020, of the series of deadliest attacks that the three countries concerned had known since the outbreak of the conflict in 2012 in the north of Mali.
More than a dozen isolated camps in which the Sahelian soldiers were entrenched had been the targets of the EIGS according to a proven modus operandi: the lightning attack of fighters on motorcycles.
Hundreds of soldiers had been killed.
These setbacks had prompted the Malian army, as well as the Nigerien and Burkinabè soldiers, to withdraw and regroup in stronger places.
At the end of July, at least 11 coordinated and GSIM-branded attacks hit Malian territory.
One of them took place in Kati, at the gates of Bamako and at the heart of the Malian military apparatus.
With AFP
The summary of the
France 24 week invites you to come back to the news that marked the week
I subscribe
Take international news everywhere with you!
Download the France 24 app
google-play-badge_EN