According to Bamako, the Ivorian soldiers who entered Mali illegally have been handed over to Malian justice officials.
After a protracted silence at last, the Malian government spoke out about the arrest of the 49 Ivorian soldiers on Sunday, July 10, at the Bamako airport.
According to a detailed statement from the Minister of Territorial Administration and Decentralization issued on Monday, July 11, these soldiers, transported by two “aircraft with the registration numbers ZS-BBI and UR-CTH, coming from Cote d’Ivoire,” arrived “illegally” on Malian territory.
According to information provided by the Malian government, these soldiers “including about 30 Special Forces, were in possession of weapons and munitions of war, without a mission order” and would have provided different versions on the reason for their presence on Malian soil.
One of them was “to secure the logistics base of the airline Sahelian Aviation Services, a partner of the UN Mission in Mali (MINUSMA).
Convinced that they were dealing with “mercenaries” whose “purpose was clearly to break the momentum of the rebuilding and securing of Mali,” “after an analysis of the facts,” the authorities in Bamako decided to bring them to justice.
As for the airline “Sahelian Aviation Services”, which they were supposed to secure, it has been invited to entrust its protection to the Malian defense and security forces.
Bamako has also decided to end, “with immediate effect,” the contract for the protection of this company by foreign forces, who are told to leave Mali.
Following the arrest of the 49 Ivorian soldiers, one version linked them to “national support elements” (NSEs).
According to an unclassified UN document consulted by APA, NSEs, a force of not more than 50 elements in principle, owe their existence to the needs of countries contributing to UN peacekeeping missions to deploy additional elements to provide their contingents with administrative and logistical services with national standards of support that may exceed or differ from the declared needs of the UN.
“Since the NSEs respond to national needs and not those of the UN, their number is not considered part of the overall force strength mandated by the UN Security Council,” the same document said.
On Twitter, Olivier Salgado, Spokesman for MINUSMA, recalled this principle, adding that “rotations of MINUSMA’s contingents are planned and carried out in agreement with the Malian authorities.”
The Malian government said it had approached the UN Mission, which said it had no rotation planned for July 10.
The Ivorian government has not yet responded.
In August 2020, the military overthrew the regime of Ibrahim Boubacar Keita (IBK) and set up a transition that they “rectified” less than a year later.
Starting in January 2022, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) sanctioned Mali to force the military to hold elections to hand over power to elected civilian authorities.
The tug-of-war that ensued between the Malian military and ECOWAS was compounded by diplomatic tension between Paris and Bamako, which began with the announcement in June 2021 by French President Emmanuel Macron of the reorganization of France’s military presence in the Sahel, Barkhane.
Malian transitional authorities called the French decision a “mid-air drop” and responded by strengthening their cooperation with Russia, using the services of the controversial military company, Wagner, to replace the French military as their main support in the fight against jihadist groups.
With only one step left in France’s final withdrawal from Mali, the ECOWAS embargo, which had an economic and financial component, was lifted at the end of the organization’s last summit on July 3 in Accra, Ghana.
On June 29, the United Nations Security Council renewed the mandate of MINUSMAfor another year.
AC/los/fss/as/APA