Tomorrow Thursday, the Security Council will examine the prospect of withdrawing Minusma, the UN mission present in Mali for ten years, whose mandate expires this Friday. This demand had been loudly made by Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop on June 16th.
For two years, Mali had prohibited overflight of certain parts of its territory, had obstructed the movement of UN personnel, and had expelled the spokesman of Minusma and then the head of its “Human Rights” division. These warning signs alerted the United Nations to modify the mandate of a mission that no longer satisfied Bamako and whose work had become difficult due to the interference of the Malian transitional authorities on the ground. However, the radical demand to end the Minusma surprised everyone, and the different modes of reorganization that the UN Security Council had considered are now invalid, as Mali wants the Minusma to simply leave.
The Malian transitional authorities believe that the mission does not meet their expectations, the context requires, according to Bamako, a force to fight against terrorism, going beyond the doctrine of the United Nations peacekeeping mission.
Above all, the Malian authorities no longer want the work of the mission’s “Human Rights” division, which has documented jihadist violence in numerous reports, but also that of the Malian army and its Russian auxiliaries group.
The United Nations investigated the Malian military operation carried out in March 2022 in Moura village and published a report accusing the Malian army and its Russian auxiliaries of having summarily executed more than 500 people and committing acts of torture rape. However, the Malian army assessed that 203 people died, all jihadists, which contradicted the official version.