Bangladeshi UN Peace Keeper shot dead in Mali

Militants have opened fire on United Nations Peace Keepers leaving one Bangladeshi Peace Keeper dead and another seriously injured in Mali`s capital Bamako Monday night, security sources say.

He said the peacekeepers had been travelling from Bamako airport towards the south of the city when they were shot at by assailants from a car.

"Armed men that we have not yet identified shot at two peacekeepers who were on board a UN vehicle on Monday night," a Malian security source said.

"One of them was killed and the other seriously wounded.

The ambush on Monday came just five days after a militant opened fire on a UN residence in the city`s Faso Kanu neighbourhood.

The unidentified gunman shot and wounded a civilian guard and hurled two grenades which failed to explode in the early hours of Wednesday last week, but no troops were hurt.

No group has claimed responsibility for either attack on the UN in Bamako, but they come at a time of strained relations between the government and MINUSMA, which has complained that its impartiality has been "regularly called into question".

Militants linked to Al Qaeda seized control of northern Mali for more than nine months until a French-led military intervention of 2013 that partly drove them from the region.

Despite peaceful elections after the French operation, the country remains deeply divided and the north has seen an upsurge in attacks by pro-government militias and the Tuareg-led rebellion known as the CMA.

The government and several armed groups signed a peace accord on May 15 in a ceremony in Bamako attended by numerous heads of state but missing the crucial backing of the CMA.

More than 40 peacekeepers have been killed since the MINUSMA was established in the West African nation in 2013.

SRJ