Children killed in attack on UN Mali base

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/09/children-killed-in-attack-on-un-mali-base

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A peacekeeper and two children were killed on Sunday as militants shelled a UN base in northern Mali.

The UN’s Minusma force said more than 30 rockets were fired at its barracks in the rebel stronghold of Kidal from 5.40 am (0540 GMT).

“Once they had established from where the rockets were being fired, Minusma troops immediately returned fire two kilometres from the compound, at around 6am,” the force said in a statement.

“According to preliminary reports, one Minusma soldier died and eight others were injured. The shelling also claimed victims among the citizens of Kidal outside the compound, killing two and injuring four.”

The force said in an update on Twitter that the civilian victims – members of the nomadic Arab Kunta tribe – were children and that only three had been wounded.

Their encampment near the UN base was hit by stray rockets as the attack got under way, a Minusma source said.

Sources inside the force also said the peacekeeper, like the majority of personnel at the base, was Chadian.

The UN security council issued a statement condemning the “heinous” assault and warned that “those responsible for the attack shall be held accountable” while calling on the Malian government to investigate.

The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, also condemned the “intolerable” killings, calling them a “breach of international humanitarian law”.

No group has claimed responsibility, although Kidal is the cradle of northern Mali’s Tuareg separatist movement, which has launched several uprisings from the region since the 1960s.

Tuareg and Arab militias – loyalist and anti-government – have forged a peace agreement with the Malian government formulated earlier this month in Algiers, although the main rebel groups have yet to sign it.

Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and other jihadist groups also carry out attacks in Kidal, including the 2013 murders of French journalists Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon.