Two civilians and a UN peacekeeper have been killed as militants attacked a barracks used by the United Nations’ Minusma force in northern Mali.

“This morning around 5.40am, the Minusma camp in Kidal suffered more than 30 rockets and shells during a complex attack,” the force said in a statement on Sunday.

“Once the source of the shooting was established, Minusma force soldiers immediately returned fire 1.2 miles (2km) from the camp, around 6am.

“An initial assessment revealed the death of a Minusma soldier and that eight soldiers were wounded. The rockets also hit Kidal citizens outside the camp, and two deaths and four wounded were counted.”

The statement said some of the wounded were being treated at the barracks, and that air and ground patrols had been launched.

A Minusma source told Agence France-Presse the civilian victims were members of the nomadic Arab Kunta tribe, which is spread across the Saharan regions of Mali, Algeria, Mauritania and Niger.

Their encampment near the UN base was hit by stray rockets as the attack got under way, the source said.

The assault came a day after an attack in a restaurant in Mali’s capital, Bamako, in which five people were killed, including two foreigners, highlighting continued volatility in Mali two years after France helped retake territory from al-Qaida-linked militants.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for Sunday’s attack, although Kidal is the cradle of northern Mali’s Tuareg separatist movement, which has launched several uprisings from the region since the 1960s.

Tuareg and Arab militias – loyalist and anti-government – have forged a peace agreement with the Malian government formulated earlier this month in Algiers, although several rebel groups are yet to sign.

“Minusma expresses its indignation at the cowardice of the perpetrators of these attacks, which also killed innocent citizens,” the statement said. “Minusma strongly condemns these heinous acts of terror whose sole purpose is to thwart all ongoing efforts to establish lasting peace in Mali.”

Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and other jihadi groups also carry out operations in Kidal, including the 2013 murders of French journalists Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon.