PARIS – Thirteen French soldiers were killed in Mali when two helicopterscollided while fighting insurgents in the country’s restive north,officials said on Tuesday, the heaviest single loss for the French militaryin nearly four decades.
The accident occurred late on Monday while the helicopters were reinforcingground troops pursuing the insurgents in the Liptako region, near theborders of Burkina Faso and Niger, the armed forces ministry said.
Mali has been besieged by a wave of deadly strikes against army outpostsand other targets in recent weeks, a flare-up of violence despite years ofefforts to push back the extremists.A Tiger attack helicopter collided with a Cougar military transporthelicopter while engaging the insurgents fleeing on motorbikes and inpick-up trucks.
Both aircraft crashed not far from each other, killing all on board, theministry said.
One of the victims was the son of French Senator Jean-Marie Bockel, acentrist and former government minister who sits on the senate’s armedforces committee, the father confirmed.
“These 13 heroes had just one goal: To protect us. I bow my head in frontof the pain of their families and comrades,” President Emmanuel Macron saidon Twitter.
Macron promised this month new measures “in the coming weeks” to bolsterthe fight against the Islamic insurgency in the Sahel, after receiving thepresidents of Mali, Chad and Niger at the Elysee Palace.
France’s 4,500-member Barkhane force in Mali and four other West Africancountries is tasked with building up and training local security forces butalso participates in operations against the insurgents.
Yet French officials acknowledge that local security forces remain woefullyunder-equipped and under-financed for shouldering the anti-jihadist fightdespite years of French engagement.
Such warnings have given grist to critics who say France risks becomingbogged down in a fight it cannot win without significant new investments insoldiers and material.
The accident, the deadliest since France intervened in Mali in 2013 todrive back an intense Islamic insurgency, brings to 38 the number of Frenchsoldiers killed in the country.
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It was the heaviest loss for the French army since the 1983 attack on theDrakkar building in Beirut, claiming the lives of 58 paratroopers.
An inquiry has been opened into the cause of the mid-air collision, DefenceMinister Florence Parly said.
Mali has sustained a wave of insurgency strikes on army outposts and othertargets, with more than 50 killed over just a few days in early November.
The strikes came as France announced the death last month of Ali Maychou, aMoroccan leader of the Group to Support Islam and Muslims (GSIM), andconsidered the top militant leader in Mali.
The GSIM has claimed responsibility for the biggest attacks in the Sahelsince its official launch in 2017.
Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita warned this month that thecountry’s stability was at stake, urging people to rally around thecountry’s besieged armed forces as well as foreign forces, which alsoinclude the United Nations’ 13,000-strong MINUSMA peacekeeping mission.
It is one of the countries in the Sahel region of Africa that has beencaught in the eye of the storm since 2012, along with Niger, Burkina Faso,Niger and Chad.
Yet funding for their joint G5 Sahel force, which is supposed to take overfrom the Barkhane operation, has compounded training and equipmentshortfalls.
Since January, more than 1,500 civilians have been killed in Burkina Fasoand Mali, and more than one million people have been internally displacedacross the five countries — more than twice the number of persons displacedin 2018, the UN said this month. -APP/AFP
