UNITED NATIONS (AP) – The United Nations is in the midst of what Secretary-General António Guterres has called an “unprecedented” six-month pullout from Mali on orders from the West African country’s military junta, which has recruited mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group to help combat it to help an Islamic uprising.
The UN special envoy for Mali, El-Ghassim Wane, laid out the extent of the operation to the UN Security Council on Monday: All 12,947 UN peacekeepers and police officers must be sent home, their 12 camps and a temporary government base handed over and 1,786 civilian employees were laid off by December 31.
Mali’s UN ambassador Issa Konfourou said the government is cooperating with the UN peacekeeping mission MINUSMA but will not extend the deadline.
The United Nations would also have to ground about 5,500 sea containers of equipment and 4,000 vehicles owned by the United Nations and countries that have provided personnel to MINUSMA, the fourth largest of the 12 United Nations peacekeeping operations, Wane said.
This process has begun but will continue during a “liquidation phase” beginning January 1, 2024 and lasting 18 months, with the UN stationing police in the three centers in the capital, Bamako, Gao and Timbuktu, where the Equipment is located to be collected.
Mali has been in turmoil since a military coup in 2012, after which rebels in the north established an Islamic State two months later.
The extremist rebels were ousted from power in the north with the help of a French-led military operation, but moved from the arid north to the more populous center of Mali in 2015 and remain active.
In August 2020, Mali’s president was overthrown in a coup that also involved an army colonel, who carried out a second coup and was sworn in as president in June 2021. He developed links with the Russian military and the Wagner Group, whose leader was reportedly Yevgeny Prigozhin, who died in a plane crash on a flight from Moscow last week.
The UN sent peacekeeping troops in 2013 and MINUSMA has become the most dangerous UN mission in the world with more than 300 employees killed.
In a 13-page letter to Security Council members circulated Monday, Guterres said “the timing, scope and complexity of the mission’s withdrawal are unprecedented.”
He said the “landlocked country’s vast terrain, hostile operational environment in certain regions and its climate make the mission’s withdrawal within a six-month timeframe extremely difficult.”
Guterres said the logistics of moving troops and equipment are being further constrained by the presence of “armed terrorist groups” and the recent military takeover in Niger, a key transit country.
UN experts said in a report last week that Islamic State extremists had nearly doubled the territory they controlled in Mali in less than a year, and that their al-Qaeda-allied rivals also emerged from the standoff and the perceived weakness of the armed forces Groups that have signed capital a 2015 peace deal.
UN Envoy Wane told the Security Council that the first phase of the disengagement focused on closing the smallest and most distant outposts – Menaka, Ber, Goundam and the makeshift base at Ogossagou – which was completed on August 25.
Withdrawal from Ber was two days early because of clashes in the camp and UN convoys leaving the camp were attacked with no casualties.
Konfourou from Mali said that “armed terrorist groups took hostile measures to prevent the Malian security and armed forces from occupying the camp” in Ber.
France’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Nathalie Broadhurst, told the council that the clashes in Ber “involved Wagner mercenaries” and constituted a serious violation of a ceasefire and the 2015 peace accord.
US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield also expressed concern about the resumption of hostilities in northern Mali, including in Ber.
“Furthermore, MINUSMA’s withdrawal limits the international community’s ability to protect civilians from Wagner’s raids, whose activities contribute to greater insecurity in the country,” she said.
Russia’s Deputy Ambassador to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, did not mention Wagner but said: “Russia will continue to provide full assistance to Mali and other interested African partners on a bilateral, equal and mutually respectful basis.”
UN Envoy Wane said the second and final phase of the troop withdrawal from September 1 will be “incredibly difficult” as convoys to evacuate troops and equipment will have to travel great distances, including through enemy territory – in the case of the UN Troop withdrawal 563 kilometers Tessalit camp.
Wane stressed that the withdrawal comes as the 2015 peace deal between the government, a pro-government militia and a coalition of groups seeking autonomy in northern Mali has been paralyzed.
“This agreement is the cornerstone of Mali’s long-term stabilization,” he said.