Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou has pledged to keep its peacekeepers in neighboring Mali a day after nine of them were murdered by armed gunmen.
"Niger will continue to fight terrorism in Mali," Issoufou said on Saturday.
The peacekeepers, part of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), were killed on Friday when armed attackers on motorbikes ambushed their convoy on the road between Ansongo and Menaka in northern Mali.
The government of Niger has announced three days of mourning, beginning from Sunday.
The UN and the African Union’s mission in Mali condemned the killing.
A Nigerien officer from MINUSMA said the attackers belonged to the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group that has been responsible for numerous attacks in northern Mali in recent years.
MINUSMA was established after the UN Security Council adopted resolution 2100 on April 25, 2013. It is tasked with security-related operations in Mali.
In June, a vehicle exploded at the entrance of a UN camp in the town of Aguelhoc in the Kidal region of Mali. Four peacekeepers died and 10 others were injured.
Mali slid into chaos after President Amadou Toumani Toure was toppled in a military coup in March 2012.
The coup leaders said the move was in response to the government’s inability to contain a rebellion by Tuareg people in the north of the country
