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File photo of UN peacekeepers in Mali [Xinhua]
Seven people, including five Malian security guards, a gendarme and civilian were killed.
“Moscow resolutely condemns this villainous crime aimed at destabilizing of the situation in Mali and undermining the Mali settlement,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
“We support Bamako’s efforts towards stabilization and national accord on the basis of the 2015 Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation in Mali,” the ministry said.
Armed men attacked a UN camp in Timbuktu and in a separate incident also opened fire on UN peacekeepers and Malian troops in Douentza, in central Mali.
The UN peacekeeping mission confirmed the attack and deaths. The UN mission in Mali, a former French colony, is the deadliest active peacekeeping mission in the world. More than 100 peacekeepers have been killed in Mali in the past four years.
“The Secretary-General stresses that attacks targeting United Nations peacekeepers may constitute war crimes under international law,” a spokesperson for UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement on Tuesday.
The UN mission in Mali (MINUSMA) began in July 2013 after a French-led military campaign defeated armed Islamist groups who had seized control of Mali’s desert north in the chaos following a Tuareg separatist uprising and a military coup the previous year.
TBP and Agencies
