A court in Mali has condemned a man to death in connection with a 2019 attack that killed three United Nations peacekeepers. The UN’s peacekeeping mission said without stating the name of the defendant.
Mali has been dealing with violence by armed non-state actors for over a decade, which has spread across the Sahel area despite costly international efforts to quell it.
Since 2013, the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) has been in operation in the country.
However, the deployment of peacekeepers has not prevented armed groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS) from attacking villages and towns, army facilities, and police stations.
On February 22, 2019, five peacekeepers were attacked while traveling through the rural commune of Siby in southern Mali, around 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the capital Bamako. Three people were slain, all from Guinea, which has one of the mission’s largest contingents.
According to MINUSMA, a Bamako criminal court convicted the man on Tuesday of criminal association, murder, robbery, and unlawful possession of firearms in connection with the Siby incident.
Judges issued the death penalty, which has not been used in Mali since a moratorium on executions was enacted in 1980.
The MINUSMA statement refused to provide the name of the convicted man as well as information about the plea he entered. The court was unable to be reached for comment.
Over 13,000 troops have been deployed by MINUSMA to suppress the violence, which is centered in Mali’s north and center.
The mission has recorded 281 deaths of MINUSMA troops, the majority of whom were killed when convoys collided with improvised explosive devices set by armed factions.
Source: Aljazeera News
