Ivorian soldiers have been detained by Bamako since last July for “attempting to destabilise” the transition.
The Malian authorities have less than a month to release the 46 Ivorian soldiers detained in Bamako since last July for being ”mercenaries”.
Otherwise, Mali may face new sanctions from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
Meeting on Sunday 4 December in an ordinary session in Abuja, Nigeria, West African heads of state came to this conclusion, as declared by the president of the ECOWAS Commission at the end of the meeting.
The Togolese president, Faure Gnassingbé, will be responsible for bringing the ultimatum to Colonel Assimi Goïta in the coming days.
It follows the failure of the mediation of ECOWAS in this dispute.
The regional institution sent a “high-level mission” to Bamako to obtain the release of the Ivorian soldiers, in vain.
The continued detention of 46 of them after the Lomé mediation that led to the release of the three women of the group, still worries ECOWAS.
The threat of new sanctions against Mali may not “solve the problem.”
“Whatever one thinks of the case, it is pending before the courts in Mali,” said a West African political scientist, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The latter doubts the effectiveness of a new embargo after the one imposed on Mali from January to July 2022 for its refusal to hand over power to civilians within a reasonable time.
For the same researcher, a country like Senegal cannot afford to close its borders for a bilateral dispute of this nature and in its own economic context.
ECOWAS has not specified the nature of the sanctions that will be imposed on Bamako, stresses our interlocutor who already advises against a “military intervention because Mali is not The Gambia or Guinea Bissau”.
AC/cgd/lb/as/APA