SEVERAL Mali soldiers were killed in an attack which the army blamed Friday on terrorists in the northeastern Menaka region.
“According to a first tally, we lost six men,” said an army spokesman, adding troops were searching for survivors.
“The terrorists lost at least 15 combatants,” he added.
A local official said casualties including injured and missing ran to as many as 20 after Thursday’s attack which saw an army column ambushed while escorting trucks towards neighbouring Niger, itself in a standoff with neighbours after last week’s military coup which has sparked a regional crisis.
Both the army spokesman and local official spoke on condition of anonymity with authorities not having made any official comment on the incident.
The official said both Malian troops and Russia’s Wagner paramilitary force were deployed in the area.
The ruling junta has presented the Russian fighters, bolstering its fight against myriad groups in the zone, as instructors.
Mali, ruled by a junta following a 2020 coup, has backed the Niger coup and warned it will consider any military intervention from outside the country as a “declaration of war.”
