Mali junta president's chief of staff, others killed in unclaimed attack
Document from the Malian presidency identified four victims in the ambush, including a chief of staff of the head of Mali's junta, a security guard, a contractor and a driver.
Militants have seized swathes of territory across the Sahel, a categorisation used for a group of countries comprising Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger.
The chief of staff of the head of Mali's junta has been killed, alongside three others, during an attack in an area known for extremist insurgents according to a document from the country's presidency.
Oumar Traore, chief of staff of Colonel Assimi Goita, was killed in the ambush some 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of the capital Bamako near the Mauritanian border on Tuesday, the government said on Thursday.
Traore was part of an official delegation that had travelled to the area, near the town of Nara and the Wagadou forest, to scout prospective drilling sites for local populations.
The document identifies three other victims including a security guard, a contractor and a driver. Another driver is missing, it said.
The attack has not yet been claimed.
Traore's funeral will take place on Thursday in Kati, a garrison town near the capital Bamako, the document said.
READ MORE: Dozens of civilians killed as Daesh, Al Qaeda militants clash in Mali
Continued militant insurgency
Last January, unidentified assailants in eastern Mali abducted a medical doctor working for the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN agency said in a statement.
Dr Mahamadou Diawara was taken from his car in the town of Menaka, located in an eastern region where militant groups linked to Al Qaeda and Daesh are active.
Assailants also attacked his driver but left him behind.
Mali is battling a rampant militant insurgency that hijacked a Tuareg rebellion in the north in 2012. The Tuareg are the majority ethnic group in the Kidal Region of northeastern Mali.
Since 2020, it has been ruled by a military junta now led by Colonel Assimi Goita. Under international pressure, it has pledged to respect a return to democracy by March 2024.
Militants have seized swathes of territory across the Sahel, a categorisation used for a group of countries comprising Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger.
Thousands of people have been killed and close to 2 million people have been uprooted, despite costly international efforts to quash them.
READ MORE: Nearly a million children in Africa's Sahel region face 'severe wasting'
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