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Added on the 15/04/2019 11:52:53 - Copyright : AFP EN
French officers hand over the keys to a military base in the Malian city of Timbuktu, after a nearly nine-year deployment. The French flag was lowered and the Malian flag raised in its place on the base, where a force of about 150 soldiers have remained after Paris began withdrawing troops in 2013. IMAGES
French Defence Minister Florence Parly meets Malian transitional President Bah N'Daw at the presidency in Bamako. Counterparts from Estonia, Kalle Laanet, and the Czech Republic, Lubomir Metnar, are part of the delegation. A UN report on Tuesday found a French air strike killed in 19 civilians in northern Mali in January. IMAGES
The funeral procession of three French soldiers killed in Mali passes over the Alexandre-III bridge, in front of Parisians who have come to pay tribute to them, before a ceremony at the Invalides. The three soldiers were killed on 28 December in an attack claimed by the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM), affiliated to al-Qaeda. Two other soldiers, including a woman, were killed shortly afterwards, on 2 January, in similar circumstances. IMAGES
Frenchwoman Sophie Pétronin gets out of a plane at Villacoublay, south of Paris, after her release from a near four-year hostage ordeal at the hands of suspected jihadists in Mali. She is welcomed by her relatives and the French president, Emmanuel Macron. IMAGES
In the barracks of the 1st regiment of parachute hussars of Tarbes, France's minister for the armed forces, Florence Parly, presides over a national tribute to the two French soldiers who were killed Saturday in Mali. IMAGES
A map shows the city of Tessalit in Mali. French forces have killed the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Algerian Abdelmalek Droukdel, in Mali, French Defence Minister Florence Parly says. Droukdel was killed on Thursday in the northwest Mali town of Tessalit. "Many of his close associates" were also "neutralised", Parly says. IMAGES