At least 100 soldiers were killed in a jihadist attack on a central army base in Mali last week, several sources told AFP on Friday, doubling a previously reported toll.
The assault on the Dioura military camp is one of the deadliest suffered by the Malian army since the beginning of the conflict that has ravaged the west African country for nearly 15 years.
The September 10 attack "resulted in a tragedy of unprecedented scale, more than 100 soldiers including two officers were killed," a security source in the city of Mopti told AFP.
"The soldiers lacked air support, and many of them were on their first field deployment", the source added, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive situation.
A military police report "lists approximately 100 lost, some 30 wounded and just as many prisoners", an officer from the armed forces general staff told AFP.
"More than 100 Malian soldiers were killed. Over 80 were taken prisoner. The camp has since been abandoned. The camp was emptied of all its weaponry," a local official told AFP.
Earlier this week various sources reported that at least 50 Mali soldiers and five mercenaries from Russia's Africa Corps had been killed, with some placing the death toll as high as 60 to 80 soldiers.
The strategic Dioura army base in the centre of the country remains abandoned eight days after the attack, according to local sources contacted by AFP Thursday.
The assault was immediately claimed by the Al-Qaeda-linked Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM).
On Thursday the group reported on its Al-Zallaqa propaganda platform that it had "neutralised" 150 Malian soldiers and captured 93 others.
The army has not disclosed an official toll, but has announced operations "against the attackers of Dioura" for several days.
In a video released by JNIM, a man identified as a captured Malian soldier recounted being attacked at the camp and engaging in "more than three hours of combat" before "falling back."
Since late April, JNIM and its Tuareg separatist allies have waged a series of attacks aimed at weakening the country's junta rulers, including capturing the northern city of Kidal and killing the defence minister.
Mali has been wracked since 2012 by a serious security crisis, notably fuelled by violence from jihadists allied to Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State group, along with criminal gangs and armed separatists.
Its junta, which came to power in two successive coups in 2020 and 2021, has turned away from former colonial power France and moved closer to Russia, both militarily and politically.
In mid-July, at least 50 other soldiers lost their lives in northern Mali when a coalition of Tuareg separatists and jihadists ambushed an army convoy leaving the strategic town of Anefis and heading for the city of Gao.