TWO French soldiers were killed in Mali yesterday when their armoured vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device.

“It is with great sorrow that the President of the Republic learned of the death in combat of two soldiers from first regiment of Valencia, killed this morning,” the Elysee Palace stated.

France currently has 4,000 soldiers in the north African country, having deployed troops in 2013 to fight Islamist militants amid an uprising by the Tuareg people.

Under Operation Barkhane 1,000 French troops are to be stationed in Mali indefinitely, ready to make a “rapid and efficient intervention in the event of a crisis” in the words of former French president Francois Hollande.

The deaths come in the week that the European Union is set to double the funding for the G5 Sahel force, set up by Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger to fight jihadists in the Sahel desert.