Two killed in western Mali attack

A police checkpoint in western Mali was the scene of an improvised explosive device explosion that killed an officer and a civilian on Monday.

According to the regional governor’s office, seven additional people were hurt in the attack at the Nara National Police checkpoint on the way to Mauritania. The civilian was an employee at the town hall, it said.
A military official also confirmed the attack to AFP.

On February 7, two police officers and a gendarme were killed in an attack by suspected jihadists on a checkpoint in the town of Nara.

Mali has been in the throes of a decade-long security crisis triggered by a regional revolt in the north that developed into a full-blown jihadist insurgency.

Thousands of people have died, hundreds of thousands have fled their homes, and the landlocked nation has suffered terrible economic damage.

Since August 2020, Mali has been ruled by the military. The violence has mainly affected the centre and the east of the country, and has spread to neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.