UNITED NATIONS, September 19 (RIA Novosti) - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday condemned attacks on peacekeepers in Mali after a landmine explosion hit a UN vehicle in the country, killing five peacekeepers from Chad and injuring three, saying, "The commitment of the United Nations to support the Malian people in their search for peace."
The secretary-general called on "the armed groups meeting in Algiers to take immediate action on their declaration to collaborate with the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali in the prevention of these cowardly attacks."
Ban cited the armed groups' September 16 declaration, made after a similar September 14 attack that killed one peacekeeper and injured four.
Of this new attack, the United Nations on Friday said, "The Secretary-General is outraged by the attack on 18 September in the vicinity of Aguelhok, Kidal Region, in Northern Mali which killed five Chadian peacekeepers serving in MINUSMA. Three other peacekeepers were also injured when the vehicle in which they were traveling was hit by an explosive device."
This attack follows another in the Kidal Region on September 2 that killed four peacekeepers and wounded 14 others. Back on August 16, Ban condemned the killing by a suicide bomber of "two UN peacekeepers and the wounding of at least seven others in a suicide attack in Ber" in Mali's Timbuktu Region.
In June in Aghelhoc, also in northern Mali, four UN peacekeepers were killed.
Bringing together the mounting casualty figures for peacekeepers in Mali, the UN said, "This latest attack brings the total of peacekeepers killed in incidents by explosive devices in Mali to 21 and 84 wounded peacekeepers since the beginning of the mission on July 1, 2013."
