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28-05-2023
BAMAKO: Several thousand demonstrators gathered in the country’s capital of Bamako on Thursday, demanding an end to a United Nations peacekeeping mission that they say has failed to bring peace.
Demonstrators held signs calling for the UN mission known as MUNISMA (United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali) to leave the country.
The M5-RFP, the party of the transitional Prime Minister Choguel Maiga and civil society organizations supporting the transitional military government, organized the rally held at the Palais des Sports arena.
“It’s an evil force that needs to leave our land. It’s been of no use; it has failed to deliver. Give us a few weeks and we will drive them out of the country,” demonstrator Abdoulaye Diarra told Al Jazeera.
Thousands of people have been killed in attacks by armed groups linked to ISIL (ISIS) and al-Qaeda since 2013.
MINUSMA was established that year to support foreign and local troops battling the armed groups. With more than 14,000 troops on the ground, the UN mission in Mali is the biggest, costliest, and deadliest operation in the organization’s history.
More than 300 UN peacekeepers have also been killed.
Malians initially celebrated the arrival of the UN peacekeeping force, but now say UN soldiers are the problem and not the solution. They blame it for failing to protect the population and not intervening when massacres were carried out near UN compounds.
Outside the capital, in the northern and central parts of the country where government presence is sparse, millions of Malians are still dependent on the UN mission for security but in recent months, there have been repeated instances of friction between the Malian military government and the mission, partly because Mali’s military has sought help from the Kremlin-linked Wagner Group, a private Russian mercenary firm.
The UN’s independent human rights investigators accuse them of arbitrary killings and torture, in what rights groups describe as possible evidence of war crimes. (Int’l News Desk)
