Militants in volatile central Mali killed a prison officer and a gendarme late Monday night, officials said, in a raid that saw a jail set ablaze and five inmates escape.
The overnight attack occurred in the village of Kimparana, in the Segou region of central Mali, which has witnessed a surge in violence linked to a Jihadist insurgency.
Gunmen targeted a prison and gendarmerie in the village late Monday night or early Tuesday morning, the district prosecutor Dramane Diarra told AFP, killing one gendarme and prison guard.
He added that the jail had been “torched” and that five prisoners escaped in the melee, without offering further details.