The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday asked African countries of the troubled Sahel region to set up regional patrols to better protect their borders from organized crime and terror groups.

In a unanimously adopted statement, the council expressed concern for the "alarming situation" in the region, citing groups such as al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Nigeria's Boko Haram and Mali's Ansar Dine.

Ethnic Tuareg and Arab militias from Mali are gathering for talks this week in Burkina Faso ahead of peace negotiations with the government, participants said on Monday.

"We want to get together to harmonize our points of view on certain issues before meeting with Bamako (the government)," Mohamaed Ag Assaleh, president of the Coalition of the People for Azawad (CPA), told Agence France Presse.

Minors suspected of working as child soldiers for rebel groups in Mali are being left to languish in adult prisons in violation of their human rights, Amnesty International said on Thursday.

The rights group said that since Mali descended into crisis in January 2012 a number of children had been recruited as child soldiers, "by both pro-government militias and armed groups."

Two United Nations peacekeepers, from Burkina Faso, were killed in a suicide car bombing in northern Mali on Saturday, the U.N. and Mali security sources said.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was "deeply saddened" by the deaths and the wounding of at least seven other peacekeepers in Ber, a village in Mali's Timbuktu region.

Peace talks between the Malian government and mainly Tuareg rebels will not resume until September 1 after both sides asked for more time to prepare, mediator Algeria said on Wednesday.

The substantive round of negotiations had been due to open in mid-August under a timetable agreed in preliminary talks in Algiers in July.

Mali's leader warned Thursday that a lack of air surveillance in his country's troubled north could pose risks for the world by allowing criminals to use it as a base.

The death toll in the crash of an Air Algerie flight in Mali last week has been revised down to 116 after it was discovered that two people thought to be on the plane were not, officials in Ouagadougou said.

Lebanon has handed over DNA samples from relatives of 20 citizens killed in a July 24 Air Algerie plane crash in Mali, a foreign ministry source told Agence France-Presse on Friday.

Mali is leading the investigation into the crash in which 118 people were killed when their plane went down in a remote area on the southern edge of the Sahara.

A Lebanese delegation currently present in Mali to follow up on the doomed Air Algerie passenger plane's case is trying to transfer the bodies of the Lebanese victims who were on board despite the “difficulty” of the process.

A statement released by the media office of Higher Defense Council chief General Mohammed Kheir said on Wednesday that investigation is ongoing to reveal the details surrounding flight AH5017's crash, elaborating on the work of the Lebanese delegation in Mali.

The Lebanese delegation currently present in Mali to follow-up on the Algerian plane's tragedy is preparing for examining the bodies of the Lebanese passengers who were on board, as the results of the DNA tests are expected to take at least two more weeks to be revealed.

"The Lebanese delegation met with concerned French authorities who assured that looking for victims' bodies will take up to two weeks,” LBCI television reported on Monday.