At least one police officer and a civilian were killed in the attack on a checkpoint on Tuesday evening in eastern Mali, which is plagued by jihadist violence, local authorities announced on Wednesday to AFP.
The attack took place in the late evening in the town of San, located some 400 km east of Bamako and 80 km from the border with Burkina Faso, an area that has been targeted several times by jihadists.
Two gendarmes, a policeman and four civilians were also injured and the police station was ransacked, according to the report of the attack, transmitted to AFP by the town hall and the governorate of the affected locality.
It was perpetrated by “suspected jihadists”, assured a local police source to AFP.
Mali has been plagued since 2012 by the spread of jihadism and a serious security, political and humanitarian crisis. Starting in the north, the violence mainly affects the center and the east and has since spread to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger.
The colonels who seized power in Mali by force in 2020 pushed for the rupture of the military alliance with France and its partners in 2022, and turned to Russia.