APA – Bamako (Mali) Troops and police under the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Mali (UNMISMA) must by December 31st leave the Sahelian country, which is beset by the threat of jihadism.
Created by Security Council Resolution 2100 of 25 April 2013 to support the political process and carry out a number of security-related tasks, MINUSMA is living out its final days in Mali.
A process of gradual withdrawal of UN peacekeepers involved in this international operation was set in motion after Abdoulaye Diop, Mali’s Foreign Affairs Minister, called on the United Nations Security Council in New York to withdraw MINUSMA “without delay.”
This was on 17 June 2023, two weeks before the expiry of the UN mission’s mandate.
In a note received by APA on Tuesday evening, MINUSMA said it had “completed the accelerated withdrawal of all its troops and civilian personnel from its Tessalit base on 21 October 2023” and was “also in the process of withdrawing from Aguelhok.”
However, it expressed concern about “the safety of a ground convoy heading towards Gao, a journey of more than 550 kilometres.”
“The departure from Tessalit marks the first closure of a MINUSMA camp in Kidal, in northern Mali, at a time when the security situation is deteriorating, endangering the lives of hundreds of civilian and uniformed personnel,” it says.
By way of example, MINUSMA has claimed that one of its aircraft was hit by small arms fire on 19 October when it landed in Tessalit. Fortunately, however, there were no injuries among the crew and no major damage to the aircraft. As a result, the UN mission “in Kidal is carefully assessing the situation with a view to adjusting the plan to withdraw from its base.”
In addition, the United Nations underlined “the responsibility of the transitional government of Mali to ensure the safety and security of the blue helmets and invited the junta “to provide all necessary cooperation to facilitate the withdrawal of UNMISAMA.”
Hostile environment
“The mission is continually adapting to developments on the ground and to a whole series of logistical constraints beyond its control, which are motivated by the imperative of the safety and security of its peacekeepers. It does so transparently and impartially, in accordance with the principles of peacekeeping,” the statement said.
With two months to go before the 31st December 2023 deadline, MINUSMA is under pressure.
As a result, “this accelerated withdrawal is leading to the destruction of equipment, such as vehicles, ammunition, generators and other goods, which should have been returned to the troop-contributing countries or redeployed to other United Nations peacekeeping missions around the world. This leads to significant material and financial losses,” the UN Mission complains.
According to MINUSMA, “such losses could have been avoided if the 200 trucks, held back in Gao since 24 September 2023 due to travel restrictions imposed by the Malian government, had been cleared to head for Kidal to recover and transport equipment from the three MINUSMA bases.”
Asserting that MINUSMA is “fully committed to meeting the deadline”, the United Nations called on “all parties to allow the mission to complete all phases of the drawdown in a safe and orderly manner, in accordance with Security Council Resolution 2690.”
ID/te/fss/as/APA