{{At least one United Nations peacekeeper was killed and six others injured in Mali on Monday when their vehicle struck a land mine in the north of the country, a U.N. spokesman said.}}<\/p>\n
Three of the peacekeepers, all from Burkina Faso, were seriously hurt in the blast, the latest in a serious of incidents underscoring insecurity in northern Mali despite the French and U.N. troops who deployed to drive out al Qaeda-linked Islamists last year.<\/p>\n
“A vehicle from the Burkinabe contingent hit a mine, injuring seven soldiers, four of them seriously,” Olivier Salgado told Reuters. “One of the four subsequently died.”<\/p>\n
Salgado said the explosion took place outside the town of Goundam in Timbuktu region.<\/p>\n
The explosion comes as Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore, a key figure in regional politics, visited Mali on Monday in a bid to revive dialogue with rebels still occupying positions in Mali’s desert north.<\/p>\n
Al Qaeda-linked Islamist groups took advantage of an uprising by Tuareg separatist rebel fighters and a military coup in the capital to seize Mali’s vast desert north in 2012.<\/p>\n
France dispatched thousands of troops last year to drive the Islamists out of the zone and a U.N. peacekeeping mission is rolling out to try to stabilise the fragile northern regions.<\/p>\n
But pockets of Islamists that remain have launched a series of bomb attacks on Malian and U.N. troops this year. <\/p>\n
Mali’s government and rebel groups not officially linked to the Islamist militants are due to complete peace talks. <\/p>\n
However, Mali’s army lost 50 soldiers in a failed bid last month to dislodge Tuareg separatists still occupying the town of Kidal.<\/p>\n
Mali’s foreign minister last week called on the United Nations to speed up deploying the remainder of its promised 12,000-member peacekeeping force and station more troops in the north. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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