A Bangladeshi soldier deployed on a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali was shot dead, and another wounded, in a militant attack at Bamako, the capital of Mali, in the second attack in days, the UN said yesterday.
The deceased was Nilkanto Hajang and the injured soldier is Shirajul Islam, a press release issued by Inter Services Public Relations Directorate said yesterday.
A militant group ambushed a vehicle of the Bangladesh transport contingent of the peacekeeping mission around 7:30am on Monday, killing Nilkanto. Shirajul took a bullet to his hand and is undergoing treatment, the statement read.
A Malian security source told the AFP overnight on condition of anonymity that the soldiers were killed by unidentified armed men.
But the source later clarified: “We have launched an investigation to find out what exactly happened since, on the face of it, there are no bullet holes, just traces of blood, in the vehicle.”
More than 100 Bangladeshi peacekeepers have lost their lives in the UN missions so far. Bangladesh’s contribution to UN peacekeeping mission is the largest in the world, with over 10,000 members in service.
With 35 peacekeepers killed in combat since the inception of MINUSMA, the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, in 2013, the UN has described northern Mali as the deadliest place on Earth for its personnel.
The force is regularly attacked by militants in the north, but had not been a direct target in Bamako before an assailant opened fire on a MINUSMA residence in the city’s Faso Kanu neighbourhood on Wednesday last week.
No group has claimed responsibility for either attack, but they come at a time of strained relations between the government and MINUSMA, which has complained that its impartiality has been regularly called into question.