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| - Around 40 Malian troops were dead or listed missing after their convoy was ambushed in central Mali in an assault blamed on jihadists, military sources said on Monday. About a dozen vehicles came under attack on Sunday at Bouka Were, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the Mauritanian border, a senior military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. It was the latest in a string of bloody assaults by jihadists who unleashed a revolt in the north of the Sahel country in 2012 that has spread to neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger despite the presence of thousands of French and UN troops. Some of the vehicles were able to extricate themselves from the ambush, but of the 64 troops who had been in the convoy, only about 20 were present at a roll call, the source said. "A search is under way to determine the fate of soldiers who have been listed missing," he said. Another military officer and an official in the nearby town of Diabaly, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed his account. The Islamist insurgency has claimed thousands of military and civilian lives and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes. Violence in recent months has engulfed volatile central Mali, with jihadist atrocities leading to deadly tit-for-tat assaults among ethnic groups. On Saturday, two Egyptian soldiers with the UN peacekeeping force MINUSMA were killed when their convoy came under attack in northwestern Mali, the United Nations said. sd-lal/sba/gd/ri
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