France Rejects UN Report of Airstrike on Wedding Party
Voice of America
PARIS - France is rejecting a U.N. report that said a French air strike in central Mali in January killed 19 civilians as part of anti-terrorist operations in the Sahel.
What happened in the village of Bounti in central Mali on January 3 remains a question that is at the heart of a dispute between France and the U.N. peacekeeping mission to Mali, MINUSMA. Earlier this week, a U.N. investigation concluded that a wedding celebration was hit by the French airstrike that killed the civilians and three armed men, allegedly jihadist members of the Katiba Serma militant group. For the past three months, French authorities have denied that anything they hit was a wedding party or that there was any collateral damage in such an operation.Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. Fire rages following an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced Palestinians, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, in this still picture taken from a video, May 26, 2024. Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. A member of the bomb squad of the Israeli police collects debris after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants struck in the Israeli city of Herzliya on May 26, 2024.