US actress Angelina Jolie, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) special envoy, speaks with Malian refugees in Goudebo, a camp that welcomes more than 11,000 Malian refugees in northern Burkina Faso, on International Refugee Day on June 20, 2021. AFP
A car-bomb attack in northern Mali has wounded 15 UN peacekeepers, the United Nations said on Friday, in the latest attack in the war-torn Sahel state.
The UN said on Twitter that an evacuation was underway after a car bomb struck a temporary operational base in the area around Tarkint, in the lawless north of the country, without offering further details.
The UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, known as MINUSMA, has some 13,000 troops drawn from several nations deployed across the vast semi-arid country.
Mali is struggling to contain an Islamist insurgency that erupted in 2012 and which has claimed thousands of military and civilian lives since.
Despite the presence of thousands of French and UN troops, the conflict has engulfed the centre of the country and spread to neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.
On Monday, six French soldiers and four civilians were wounded when a car bomb detonated near a French armoured car in central Mali.
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