U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has decided to open an official inquiry on the shooting death of three protesters during demonstrations in northern Mali, his spokesman said Thursday.

Witnesses said the three Malians were shot in Gao by U.N. troops during protests on Tuesday against a U.N. plan to assert control over an area north of the town.

Mali's president pulled out of an African Union summit Thursday to visit the restive city of Gao following the deaths of protesters in violent demonstrations against the United Nations.

Ibrahim Boubacar Keita had been due to fly to Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, a day ahead of a meeting of the 54-nation bloc, but changed his plans following the bloodshed in Mali's restive north.

Around a dozen people were killed when a pro-government armed group, including suicide bombers, launched an attack on rebel fighters in northern Mali, security sources said Wednesday.

"GATIA fighters, accompanied by suicide bombers, attacked a rebel Tuareg and anti-government Arab position in the night from Tuesday to Wednesday near the town of Tabankort. There were around a dozen deaths in total," a Western military source told AFP.

Three people were killed in northern Mali on Tuesday after a second day of demonstrations against the United Nations military mission in the restive west African nation, concurring sources said.

Witnesses described a huge crowd of angry youths throwing stones and attempting to storm the MINUSMA headquarters in Gao to protest the U.N. taking control of a troubled area north of the city.

One of the three jihadist gunmen who waged attacks in Paris this month was buried Friday near the capital, police sources said, after his country of origin Mali refused to accept his body.

The sources, who wished to remain anonymous, said Amedy Coulibaly -- who killed a policewoman and four Jews during the January 7-9 attacks -- was buried in the Muslim section of the Thiais cemetery in the Paris region.

A U.N. helicopter gunship on Tuesday destroyed a rebel vehicle in northern Mali, causing some fatalities, after U.N. troops came under heavy weapons fire on the ground, the UN mission said.

U.N. peacekeepers were "compelled to use force in response to direct heavy weapons fire on (them) in Tabankort," its MINUSMA mission said in a statement corroborated by a rebel umbrella group joining ethnic Tuaregs and Arabs.

The Malian government and the United Nations on Sunday declared the country free of Ebola after 42 days without any new cases of the deadly virus.

Health Minister Ousmane Kone said no confirmed cases had been registered since December 6 when the last Ebola patient had tested negative.

A peacekeeper with the U.N. force in Mali was killed early on Saturday when gunmen launched a fresh attack on the camp housing U.N. troops in the country's north, U.N. officials said.

"Terrorists attacked the MINUSMA camp" in the early morning hours on Saturday, a source with the U.N. force told AFP. "MINUSMA soldiers responded and unfortunately one Chadian soldier was killed, another injured."

A soldier with the U.N. force in Mali was killed early on Saturday when gunmen launched a fresh attack on the camp housing U.N. troops in the country's north, a source told Agence France Presse.

"Terrorists attacked the Minusma camp" in the early morning hours on Saturday, a source with the U.N. force told AFP on condition of anonymity. "Minusma soldiers responded and unfortunately one Chadian soldier was killed, another injured."

At least two Malian soldiers were killed in an attack by jihadist forces Friday on the central town of Tenenkou, U.N. military sources said.

Islamist fighters had infiltrated the town  "since Wednesday night," a local told AFP, before attacking troops Friday, killing at least two of them.