The UN Mission is due to withdraw from Mali by December 31, 2023 at the latest.
For some time now, a video that has gone viral on social networks has shown people inspecting armored vehicles belonging to the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) stationed at its camp in Kidal. The commentary accompanying the video indicated that the UN Mission was putting its armored vehicles up for sale as a prelude to its planned withdrawal by December 31 at the latest. MINUSMA denied this.
In a post on its Twitter account, MINUSMA stated that it “does not sell armored vehicles.” According to the UN mission in Mali, it “regularly auctions non-hazardous waste through a transparent bidding process.”
“Auctions began in mid-March,” it claims. Bidders who had come to inspect the scrap “filmed and photographed damaged and unusable armored vehicles in the workshop.” As the message states, these vehicles “are not part of the tender and are not available for sale or donation,” adding that “UN rules simply do not authorize the sale or
donation of armored vehicles.”
This comes at a time when, since July 3, meetings between Malian officials and MINUSMA leaders have been multiplying in order to draw up a plan for the secure, orderly and coordinated withdrawal of the Mission by December 31, as stipulated in UN Security Council Resolution 2690 (2023).
Moreover, the particularity of Kidal, where this video seems to have been shot, is that it is under the control of armed groups. The Malian state is scarcely represented there. All the more so as, in the past, jihadists operating in the Sahel have sometimes been known to possess armored vehicles. This situation shows that the withdrawal of MINUSMA, already underway since July 1, will not be an easy task.
MD/ac/fss/abj/APA