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02-01-2024
UNITED NATIONS/ BAMAKO: The UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, MINUSMA, is poised to complete its withdrawal from the country on Sunday, the United Nations said in a statement.
Security experts warn the area could now become the focus of a struggle in the north as rebel groups and the army seek to take areas that the UN has left, further destabilizing Mali, where Islamist militants linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State also roam.
Violence in Mali has spiked since June when the military junta which took power in a 2021 coup ordered the UN’s decade-old peacekeeping mission to leave.
The UN said only a small team will stay behind to oversee the transportation of assets and disposal of UN-owned equipment.
“UN funds, agencies and programs were in Mali well before the deployment of MINUSMA and will stay in Mali well after the withdrawal,” MINUSMA chief El-Ghassum Wane said.
The peacekeeping mission in Mali was launched in 2013 following a violent insurrection by separatist rebels attempting to take control of the north of the country and a subsequent military-led coup.
Mali has since become the epicentre of a violent movement that has spread across West Africa and forced millions to flee.
Earlier, at least 12 civilians were killed by drone strikes around the town of Kidal in northern Mali on Tuesday, including on a base vacated days earlier by a United Nations peacekeeping mission, a local official and a rebel group said.
The strikes appear to be the first sign of conflict in Kidal, a stronghold of ethnic Tuareg rebels, since the UN left in a hurry on Oct. 31, part of its wider withdrawal from the West African country as security worsens.
Security experts warn the area could now become the epicentre of a war over the north as the rebels and the army seek to take areas that the UN vacates, further destabilising Mali, where Islamist militants linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State also roam.
A local official, Ahamoudane Ag Ikmasse, said between 12 and 15 civilian deaths had been reported on Tuesday’s strikes and that one of the drones fell near a school. A spokesperson of the rebel movement, the Permanent Strategic Framework for Peace, Security and Development (CSP-PSD), said 20 people died.
The rebel spokesperson blamed the army and Russian mercenaries that work with Mali’s military authorities.
“There were three drone strikes on the (former UN) base and one hit a group of children that were collecting objects from the camp,” Elmaouloud Ramadane said via telephone.
He said a second fell near an airfield and struck civilians, while the third missed its target. (Int’l News Desk)
