BERLIN/BAMAKO - German troops have started to withdraw from Mali as Berlin aims to wind up by May 2024 a mission that has been hampered by disputes with Bamako and the arrival of Russian forces.
Berlin has deployed some 1,000 troops to Mali, most near the northern town of Gao where their main task is to gather reconnaissance for the UN peacekeeping mission MINUSMA.
The military has begun shipping the first components of equipment, the German commander in Mali, Colonel Heiko Bohnsack, told German daily Tagesspiegel in an interview published on Wednesday.
In the first stages of the withdrawal, the material in place will slowly be thinned out while the troops will maintain all means to fulfil their mission, he added.
Also on Wednesday, the government in Berlin paved the way for a last one-year extension of the decade-old mission until May 2024, a decision that is still subject to approval by the lower house of parliament.
MINUSMA, officially known as United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali, was established in 2013 to support foreign and local troops battling armed groups. But in recent months, there have been repeated instances of friction between the Malian military government and the mission.
The mission has about 12,000 military personnel deployed in the country. The three largest contributors are Chad, Bangladesh and Egypt.
Europe’s relations with Mali have deteriorated since a military coup in 2020 and since the government invited fighters from the Wagner Group, a Kremlin-linked private military company, to support its fight against rebels.
That prompted France to withdraw its troops in 2022 after almost a decade in Mali.
The conflict’s epicenter is in Mali’s north, a remote, vast desert corner of the country that has dropped off the news radar as few journalists are granted visas from Mali’s military government. Even those who make the journey tend to stay in the capital Bamako for security reasons.
Fears are growing among locals and the shrinking expatriate community in Bamako that the capital will soon fall prey to criminals and, eventually, to Islamist insurgents. A German priest disappeared in Bamako in November 2022, apparently kidnapped — nobody wants to talk about it. Several attacks were staged outside Bamako in January 2023, forcing many foreigners to stay indoors since then.
A large U.N. peacekeeping mission, MINUSMA, in place since the French intervention, has helped stabilize the main cities in the north and center, but its future is uncertain. MINUSMA’s contract expires June 30, and the U.N. Security Council must decide whether to renew it.
Almost all Western and several African contingents have left following a dispute with Mali’s military government, which has allied itself with Russia and sought to curtail the mission.
Following repeated accusations of human rights violations, the government does not want the peacekeepers operating in areas where the army and Wagner are fighting jihadists.
