UNITED NATIONS, June 2 (NNN-Xinhua) — UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres strongly condemned the attack on a UN mission logistics convoy in Mali on Wednesday that killed one Jordan peacekeeper and injured three others.
“The secretary-general strongly condemns this attack and sends his deepest condolences to the family of the peacekeeper who died and to the people and government of Jordan,” said Stephane Dujarric, chief spokesman for Guterres. “He wishes a prompt recovery to those injured.”
For about an hour, the convoy was under direct fire from suspected members of a terrorist group using small arms and rocket launchers, Dujarric said.
The mission, known as MINUSMA, reported that the attack near the town of Kidal in the northern part of the country was the fifth incident in the Kidal region this week, the spokesman said. “It is a tragic reminder of the complexity of the mandate of the UN Mission and of the threats peacekeepers face on a daily basis.”
The special representative of the secretary-general in Mali, El Ghassim Wane, said in a statement that, despite the difficulties, MINUSMA remains determined to support the people and the government of Mali in their quest for peace and security, Dujarric said.
Landlocked Mali, one of the poorest countries in the world, is on the southern fringe of the Sahara Desert in West Africa and, like other countries in the Sahel, has fallen victim to terrorist attacks, including by jihadists, and inter-community violence killing thousands and displacing hundreds of thousands of others since 2012. — NNN-XINHUA
