Insurgents killed 25 civilians and injured 13 others in an ambush of a military-escorted convoy near Mali’s northeastern city of Gao on Friday, the army said late on Saturday.
The army’s death toll differed from a local official’s account of the incident, which said that up to 56 bodies were recorded at the hospital in Gao, and that there was also an unknown number of military casualties.
The attackers struck near the village of Kobe, around 30 km (19 miles) from Gao in a region where groups linked to Islamic State and Al Qaeda have been active for over a decade, destabilising Mali and its neighbours Burkina Faso and Niger.
The army said in a statement that at least 19 assailants were killed when soldiers retaliated and pushed them back. It did not mention military casualties.
The insurgencies took root in Mali’s arid north following a Tuareg separatist rebellion in 2012. The militants have since spread to other countries in the impoverished central Sahel region south of the Sahara.
Deadly attacks have become so frequent that the military organises near-daily escorts, a Gao resident said.
The violence has killed thousands of people, displaced millions, and spurred a string of military coups in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger between 2020 and 2023.
