Contrary to some reports in the press, the Senegalese army reaffirms its commitment to the UN Mission in Mali.
The day after the visit of Senegalese President Macky Sall to Bamako on Monday, some newspapers reported that he had negotiated with Colonel Assimi Goita for the “release” of Senegalese soldiers involved in the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA).
The 3,500 soldiers and police officers, including 850 Senegalese, have been blocked by the Malian transitional authorities “because of geopolitical and diplomatic disputes” with a large part of the international community in recent months.
Speaking to the press Senegalese opposition figure Ousmane Sonko said that “Macky Sall repatriated the few Senegalese elements that were there (Mali, editor’s note), not as Senegalese, but because France had asked him to send troops.”
However, the Directorate of Information and Public Relations of the Armed Forces (DIRPA) of Senegal states that the story about the return of Senegalese peacekeepers from Mali did not happen as told by some political actors and the media.
“Contrary to some information given in the press, Senegal has not disengaged from Mali. Senegal has started this week the periodic rotation of its contingents engaged as part of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (UNMISMA), following the example of other troop-contributing countries,” the DIRPA said in a statement seen by APA on Friday.
This periodic rotation is “a normal rotation operation to replace, number for number, the troops engaged by our country in the Malian theater since 2013 from the first hours of the crisis, first within a mission of ECOWAS (MICEMA), then the African Union (MISMA) even before the arrival of the UN,” the Senegalese army explains.
In addition, Senegal has an estimated 1,300 men and women in Minusma.
These are soldiers, gendarmes and police officers who make their country “the second largest contributor of troops in this theater, after Chad,” the DIRPA concluded