An officer and a civilian were killed when an improvised device exploded Monday (February 20th) at a police checkpoint in western Mali, a country facing jihadist violence, the Nara regional governor’s office said. Seven people were also injured in this attack on the road to Mauritania, according to the authorities. A soldier confirmed the attack to AFP.
On February 7, two Malian policemen and a gendarme were killed in an attack on a checkpoint by suspected jihadists in the same region.
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Mali has been plagued since 2012 by the spread of jihadism and a serious security, political and humanitarian crisis. Starting in the north, the violence mainly affects the center and east of the country and has since spread to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger. The colonels who seized power in Mali by force in 2020 pushed for the rupture of the military alliance with France and its partners in 2022, and turned to Russia.