A patrol conducted by local police and UN troops in an armoured vehicle.
In 2012, Islamist radicals linked to al-Qaeda, hijacked an uprising by ethnic Tuareg people and went on to seize cities across northern Mali. As part of an international response UN troops arrived in Mali in 2013 as part of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Mali (MINUSMA). It is the UN's deadliest ongoing peace keeping operation.