Militants kill five UN peacekeeping troops in Mali
Militants have attacked a United Nations base in northern Mali, leaving five UN peacekeepers dead and injuring 30 others.
Olivier Salgado, spokesman for the UN mission in Mali (MINUSMA), said shelling hit the camp in the city of Kidal early Friday.
"At about 7 a.m. (0700 GMT) the MINUSMA base in Kidal was the target of a complex attack which, according to provisional figures, caused the death of five blue helmets and around 30 wounded," Mahamat Saleh Annadif, the Mali representative of the UN secretary general, said in a statement.
Resident Ibrahim Ag Mohamed said that after the explosions UN helicopters were seen in the sky and he could hear the exchange of fire outside the city.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon condemned the "complex" attack on the base, stating that targeting UN peacekeepers is a war crime.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but the attack bears resemblance to the modus operandi of al-Qaeda-affiliated militants.
The base is part of the United Nations efforts to end violence in Mali following a takeover of the north by militants in 2012.
The UN mission has failed to stop the violence and militants have expanded their attacks in recent months into other parts of Mali and beyond.
The Kidal UN base was last targeted by mortars last November, killing three people.
Annadif was in Kidal a week after a peace pact eased tensions in the town, where the arrival early in February of members of a pro-government group had upset the former rebels in the Coordination of Movements of the Azawad.
Azawad is the name the traditionally nomadic Tuareg people of the desert use for territory they regard as their homeland, straddling the southern Sahara and the Sahel.
The latest attack came a week after at least four suspected Takfiri terrorists and a Malian soldier were killed in clashes at a UN camp for police officers from Nigeria in Timbuktu, in the northwest of the country.
Large swathes of Mali remain lawless, despite a June peace deal between the former Tuareg rebels and rival pro-government armed groups.
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