The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday edition that three employees of Canadian miner B2Gold were killed in Mali on Thursday after a bus transporting workers from the company's Fekola mine was attacked 75 kilometres west of the capital, Bamako. The Globe's Niall McGee writes that several other employees were injured and transported to hospital. It was not the first fatal attack on B2Gold employees at that location: In December, 2022, a bus transporting employees from Fekola to Bamako was the target of an armed robbery there. Two employees were killed in that incident. After the 2022 deaths, B2Gold and the Malian government took steps to improve security on the route, including increasing surveillance by the country's armed forces. The bus attacked Thursday was under a gendarme escort that had Malian armed guards at both the front and rear of a convoy. Clive Johnson, the chief executive officer of Vancouver's B2Gold, told The Globe that he does not know who carried out the attack or whether it was an act of terrorism, but he floated the possibility that armed bandits may have been behind it. The latest attack demonstrates once again the security threat that Canadian gold companies face operating in West Africa.