The UK government announced Monday a decision to withdraw its peacekeeping troops in Mali despite the fact that the African Sahel region is seeing a resurgence of Islamist activity.
Secretary of State for the Armed Forces, James Heappey, confirmed that the 300-strong British contingent, members of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), will leave the African country early.
«The responsibility for all this lies with Bamako. Two coups in three years have undermined international efforts to promote peace,» said the British representative.
With this move, London is following in the footsteps of Paris, which announced in February that its troops in Mali would move to Niger to continue their fight against jihadist activity in the region.
These decisions are yet another sign of the reticence of a large part of the international community with both the Malian military junta and its alleged alignment with the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary organization.
For Heappey, the Wagner Group is linked to «massive human rights abuses», making Bamako’s rapprochement with the organization «counterproductive to lasting stability and security in the region».
«This government cannot deploy our nation’s military to provide security when the host country’s government is unwilling to work with us to provide lasting stability and security,» Heappey said.
Nonetheless, the MoD Armed Forces Secretary stressed that the UK will continue to work closely with France and other allies to «rebalance» the UK’s deployment in the Sahel and West Africa.
London certified in 2020 the deployment of troops to Gao, in the east of Mali, a gesture that the then British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, praised as a demonstration that the United Kingdom could be a «force for good».
