(Bloomberg) -- Burundi’s army said 10 of its soldiers died in an attack by Islamist militants on a peacekeeping mission in Somalia this week.
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The statement is a rare confirmation by nations who contribute troops to the counter-insurgency in Somalia that they have suffered casualties. Al-Shabaab, the al-Qaeda-linked group that carried out the May 3 raid, claimed it killed 173 soldiers.
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In addition to the 10 soldiers who died, 20 others were wounded and five others are missing, Burundian army spokesman Colonel Floribert Biyereke said in a statement Thursday in the commercial capital, Bujumbura.
Burundi is the second-largest contributor of troops to the African Union-led counter-insurgency operation in Somalia, after Uganda.
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