Mali recalls ambassador: Algeria shot down a spy drone

On Sunday, Mali’s security minister made a statement on national television, accusing neighboring Algeria of shooting down one of its surveillance drones close to their shared border.

According to a separate joint statement released on Sunday, the West African nation and its neighbors Burkina Faso and Niger will call back their ambassadors from Algeria for discussions regarding the event.

It was shot down in the night between March 31 and April 1, according to Mali, and the drone wreckage was discovered 9.5 kilometers south of the Algerian border.

The Algerian government claimed to have determined “with absolute certainty that the Malian Armed Forces drone was destroyed in a premeditated hostile action by the Algerian regime.”

According to their united statement, the three Sahelian nations strongly denounced the “irresponsible act by the Algerian regime.”

Algeria’s Defense Ministry announced on April 1 that the army had shot down a “armed surveillance drone” that had breached the airspace of the North African nation close to the border-straddling village of Tinzaouaten, but it did not elaborate.

One of Mali’s unmanned aircraft crashed during a regular surveillance operation, the army claimed in a statement at the time.