Eight people killed in Mali after bus hits landmine
Eight people are reported to have been killed and a further 42 injured in Mali after a passenger bus carrying civilians hit a landmine west of the capital Bamako.
As reported by Reuters, a transport union official said on Tuesday 2 June that the explosion happened on Monday on a road where the Al-Qaeda-linked group, Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), operates. The explosion follows unprecedented assaults in April by JNIM, conducted in coordination with a Tuareg-dominated rebel group.
The bus was heading from Bamako to the far western city of Kayes, said Mamadou Kassambara, communications officer for the national drivers' union. Although nobody has claimed responsibility for laying the landmine, the Russian paramilitary group Africa Corps, which is operating in Mali, blamed JNIM.
JNIM recently announced a blockade on Bamako following the April attacks and is understood to have set up checkpoints on some major roads to the city.
