Minusma: Mali's controversial peacekeeping mission

Mali's ruling junta has called for the immediate departure of the country's UN peacekeeping mission, a central and controversial actor in a security crisis that has claimed the lives of nearly 200 peacekeepers in the last decade.

The African nation's military rulers had increasingly imposed operational restrictions on the peacekeepers, ultimately accusing the mission on Friday of not only being a "failure", but even becoming "part of the problem".

The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali, or Minusma, was created in 2013, taking over from an African-led mission as Mali was in the grip of an Islamist rebellion that continues today.

Its mandate, renewed in 2022 and expiring on June 30, was to support the implementation of an important peace agreement with non-jihadist rebel groups in the north; to help the Malian authorities stabilize the center of the country, another hotbed of violence; and to protect civilians and defend human rights.

The Security Council authorised it to use "all means necessary to fulfil its mandate", including force.

However, Minusma's mission was not, strictly speaking, to fight jihadists, leading some to criticize its perceived impotence, though others supported its mandate.

The force's maximum strength is set at just over 13,000 soldiers and 1,900 police. More than 50 countries, many of them African, were contributing to the force as of the end of 2022.

Seen as both a foreign presence and a symbol of the state, Minusma drew repeated attacks from jihadists.

Since 2013, 187 of its members have been killed in such attacks, many carried out with roadside bombs and mines. Two peacekeepers were killed just last week.

The request on Friday for Minusma to leave the country "without delay" completed a steady deterioration in relations between the mission and the government since the military junta came to power in 2020.

The junta has also broken a long-standing alliance with France and other Western partners in the fight against jihadism, and has turned to Russia for political and military assistance

In response to the request, Minusma head El Ghassim Wane said that "peacekeeping is based on the principle of consent from the host country and absent that consent, of course operations are nearly impossible."





AFP