In an insurgents attack on Sunday, Mali now claims that 42 of its troops were killed, bringing the total up from 17.
Officials reported that 37 militants connected to the Islamic State organisation were killed, while 22 further troops were injured.
The town of Tessit, which is near the confluence of the borders of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, was the scene of the attack. It was one of Mali’s 10-year insurgency’s bloodiest episodes.
Along with the estimated two million people who have already been displaced by violence in the greater Sahel region, thousands more locals have departed the area.
Mali is dealing with an escalating insurgency by armed organisations, some of whom have ties to the Islamic State and al Qaeda, which has spread to its neighbours Burkina Faso and Niger.
The Mali War is an ongoing armed conflict that started in January 2012 between the northern and southern parts of Mali in Africa. On January 16, 2012, several insurgent groups began fighting a campaign against the Malian government for independence or greater autonomy for northern Mali, which they called Azawad.
The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), an organisation fighting to make this area of Mali an independent homeland for the Tuareg people, had taken control of the region by April 2012.