Guard Wounded in Attack on U.N. Personnel in Mali's Capital
An unidentified gunman opened fire on a United Nations residence in the Malian capital Bamako on Wednesday, wounding a civilian guard and damaging vehicles, the organization’s MINUSMA peacekeeping mission said.
The assailant attempted to set fire to one of the force's vehicles parked in front of the residence housing troops in the city's southeastern Faso Kanu neighborhood around 2:30 am (0230 GMT), the force said in a statement.
Before escaping, he shot and wounded the guard and then opened fire on the building and parked U.N.-marked cars, the statement added.
"MINUSMA condemns in the strongest terms this attack against its staff and property, which constitutes a serious crime under international law," the mission said.
"It calls on the Malian authorities to make every effort to identify those responsible for this act and bring them to justice."
The statement said members of UNMAS, the mission's mine-clearing service, had been dispatched to defuse two unexploded grenades found at the scene.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but it comes at a time of strained relations between the government and the peacekeeping mission, which complained at the weekend that its impartiality was being "regularly called into question".
Reacting to criticism of the mission by Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, the force lamented that "neither its contribution nor its sacrifices are accorded their proper value".
Keita's broadside came at the end of a speech by Ban Ki-moon, read out in Bamako on Friday by the U.N.'s chief peacekeeper Herve Ladsous, lamenting serious violations of ceasefire agreements "on all sides".
"Have we ever violated the ceasefire? Never," Keita said.
"So then, Mr. Ladsous, it would be appropriate that the United Nations act justly and fairly in this regard," he said, calling for "a little respect for our people".
Yvan Guichaoua, a lecturer at the University of East Anglia in Britain and an expert on the Sahel region, tweeted in reaction to the attack that Keita's "anti-MINUSMA words last week don't look so wise retrospectively".
He added that, while he didn't think Keita's outburst was responsible for the attack, "continually and publicly running down MINUSMA doesn't help in calming the political climate".
With more than 40 peacekeepers killed since its inception in 2013, MINUSMA is considered the most dangerous U.N. mission in the world.
The country's restive north has been plagued by violence by jihadist groups that seized control of the region from Tuareg rebels before being routed by a French-led international intervention that began in 2013.
A suicide bomber struck a U.N. barracks in the town of Ansongo in April, killing two civilians and wounding nine peacekeepers from Niger in an attack claimed by Algerian jihadist commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar's militia.
Despite peaceful elections after the French operation, the country remains deeply divided and the north has seen an upsurge in attacks by pro-government militias and the Tuareg-led rebellion known as the CMA.
The government and several armed groups signed a peace accord last week in a ceremony in Bamako attended by numerous heads of state but missing the crucial backing of the CMA.
The Algerian-led international mediation team in the peace process said in a statement on Wednesday it was launching a series of consultations in Algiers to establish conditions for the "completion of the signing process".
The team has appointed a group of experts to set out a timetable for the implementation of the agreement, it said.
Source: Agence France Presse
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