In white robes, Mali’s leadership gathered for Friday prayers in the presidential palace in Bamako. Around the time the United Nations Security Council in New York announced the end of the UN peacekeeping mission (MINUSMA) in Mali, Malian military President Assimi Goïta appealed to his compatriots for “resilience”, according to local media. She is a “source of stability that allows us to concentrate on defending the fatherland”. The colonel, who seized power in 2021, also prayed for the “eternal rest of the famous ancestors” and the “return of peace in our country”.
Two weeks after Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop called for the immediate withdrawal of the peacekeeping mission in New York, the Security Council decided on Friday to end the mission. For ten years she was supposed to stabilize the situation in Mali.
The task of the troops should be to secure northern Mali against radical Islamists after the planned withdrawal of the French armed forces. In the end, the mission became one of the longest and costliest United Nations peacekeeping missions in the world. More than 300 MINUSMA members lost their lives.
Withdrawal by the end of the year?
After the decision on a new and final mandate for the mission in the UN Security Council, it is now clear that it will all be over in less than six months. The withdrawal of the MINUSMA should begin on Saturday and be completed by December 31 of this year. Experts consider this an ambitious timetable given the size of the mission, the security situation in the north of the country and political interests in Bamako. It is not only uncertain how the Bundeswehr and other countries will organize the withdrawal of their soldiers, but also what will become of the country after the end of the mission.
The Bundeswehr still has around 1,100 soldiers on site, most of them stationed in Gao in northern Mali and a small number at the Niamey air hub in neighboring Niger. Planning for their withdrawal had already begun after the federal government agreed at the end of last year to phase out the operation. In May, the Bundestag had already approved a mandate for the deployment, which provided for a withdrawal by the end of May 2024. Equipment has been transported back since the beginning of June.
Now it has to go faster, and it’s not that easy. After all, it’s not just the period that’s shorter. In the next few months, not only the German soldiers want to leave the country, but also all the other MINUSMA partners. This entails logistical problems at the airports and ports. Foreign and security politicians in the Bundestag were briefed by the federal government on Friday.
“Now it is important to adapt the further procedure to the new situation and to accelerate the withdrawal operation,” said Defense Minister Boris Pistorius at the weekend. “The safety of our soldiers has absolute priority.” At least it is assumed in Berlin that no new mandate from the Bundestag is required for this.
Difficult removal of equipment
In addition to weapons and ammunition, the Bundeswehr must also remove protected vehicles, as well as telecommunications technology and computers. The Ministry of Defense assumes that 1,500 “container equivalents” have to be sent to Germany. However, adjustments still have to be made as to when and how exactly this is to be achieved in the coming months.
The option of handing over parts of the equipment to the remaining partners of the MINUSMA mission in the country is likely to be obsolete. Office equipment, however, should be left behind like civilian vehicles, if only for reasons of cost. It is not yet clear whether the entire Bundeswehr will really be withdrawn under these circumstances by the end of the year.
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