Second Jordanian peacekeeper in one week killed in Mali

A Jordanian soldier on a peacekeeping mission in Mali has been killed on duty.

Sergeant Jamil Matrouk was killed while taking part in a peacekeeping mission in Mali, the official Jordanian Petra news agency reported.

The Jordanian Armed Forces said he was pronounced dead at 1:30pm on Thursday.

He is the second Jordanian soldier killed in Mali this month in a week.

Vast swathes of Mali lie beyond government control following an Islamist militant insurgency that broke out in 2012, before spreading to neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.

On 1 June, Amman announced the death of Sergeant Ali Al-Jawabra after an attack on peacekeepers in Mali, which injured three other Jordanian soldiers.

Two Egyptian peacekeepers were killed in Mali after a bomb targeted their convoy on Friday.

Jordan deploys around 639 military and police personnel to UN peacekeeping missions around the world, including Mali.

Mali has undergone two military coups since August 2020, when the army ousted elected president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

The junta pledged to return Mali to civilian rule by February 2022 but subsequently extended its timetable, incurring regional sanctions.

Mali is struggling under those sanctions imposed by its West African neighbours for its perceived foot-dragging over restoring civilian rule. A second de-facto coup took place in May 2021.

The violence gripping Mali since 2012 has involved attacks by militants linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group, but also an assortment of self-declared militias and bandits.

The conflict led to thousands of military and civilian deaths and forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes.