BAMAKO - Mali's foreign affairs minister, Abdoulaye Diop, has accused the French military command of breaching Malian airspace to collect information and drop arms and ammunition to Islamist militants, in a letter to the UN.
Diop provided no evidence to show that France had supplied arms.
Mali has requested an emergency UN Security Council meeting to stop what it calls French "acts of aggression", including alleged espionage and violations of sovereignty, and accused France of supporting jihadists...French authorities have not responded to the accusations.
On Monday - the date of the letter - the last French soldiers departed from Mali after nine years of battling a jihadist insurgency.
The Malian junta, which seized power in an August 2020 putsch, has turned away from France, its traditional ally and former colonial power, and towards Russia.
Mali "invites" the Security Council to ensure that France "immediately ceases its acts of aggression," Diop said. The letter asks the Chinese presidency to communicate these details to the council's members in the hope of arranging an emergency meeting.
France has spent a decade and billions of dollars stamping out Islamist militants, some with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State, in its former colony.
