A French Foreign Legion soldier died in a military hospital near Paris after being wounded in an explosion in Mali in what the French presidency said was an operation against armed terrorist groups.
France, the former colonial power, has 5 100 troops in Mali and the wider Sahel region, but security progressively worsened since it intervened in 2013 to stop a jihadist advance to the capital Bamako.
Brigadier Dmytro Martynyouk, of the 1st foreign cavalry regiment, died after he was wounded by an improvised explosive device (IED) on 23 April, the presidency said.
Thirteen soldiers died in a helicopter crash in Mali last November in France’s worst single loss of troops in over three decades.
