Mali minister: ‘barbaric’ attack won’t deter peace efforts

Mali’s foreign minister says the “criminal, cowardly, barbaric attack” on the armed forces and former fighters will not deter the government from moving forward “to promote peace and to act against those who are trying to sabotage the peace process.”

Abdoulaye Diop told Wednesday’s previously scheduled meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Mali that “the authors and the accomplices of this criminal attack will be prosecuted and brought to justice.”

“It is very clearly an attack on peace,” Diop said. “It targets the actors working for peace.”

A Malian military official, Col. Mohamed Ould, put the death toll at more than 50, with more than 100 others wounded.

Diop said Malians everywhere are united in grief and “determined to work together to continue to defend and to promote peace.”