On Wednesday, Germany became the latest country to end its participation in the UN peacekeeping mission in the volatile West African country. Earlier this week, British officials said 300 British soldiers sent in 2020 to join the United Nations force would return earlier than planned. In the decade since they were first deployed, UN peacekeepers and thousands of French troops have been unable to prevent swaths of Mali from falling under the control of an Islamic extremist insurgency linked to groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group. Earlier this month, President Emmanuel Macron announced the official end of the French expansion. James Heappey, the British defense secretary, said two coups in three years had undermined international efforts to promote peace and that Mali’s government was now working with the Russian Wagner mercenary group, which he accused of mass human rights abuses. “The cooperation of the Malian government with the Wagner group is counterproductive to the lasting stability and security in their region,” Heappey told parliament. Mali’s elected president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, was ousted in August 2020 by officers angry at the failure to defeat the jihadist insurgency. Last year, the military forced in an interim civilian government and leaned dramatically toward Moscow, striking a deal in which about 1,000 fighters from the Kremlin-linked Wagner Group have been deployed to bases across much of Mali and receive Russian weapons. Relations with France, Mali’s former colonial power and traditional ally, have deteriorated rapidly since the military takeover, while reports of violence and atrocities against civilians have increased. Heappey said the political environment made it impossible for British growth to continue. “This government cannot deploy our nation’s military to provide security when the host government is unwilling to work with us to ensure lasting stability and security,” he told parliament. “Through our broader experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are clear that the military should not be deployed on counterinsurgency or counter-violent extremist missions unless there is a clear and compelling commitment to political progress,” said Happy. Bamako has previously denied turning to Wagner’s paramilitaries, acknowledging only the support of Russian military “trainers”. The implications of the regime’s alignment with Moscow, however, have been very clear, with analysts suggesting that the increasing obstruction of UN power is part of a wider strategy. Subscribe to Global Dispatch Get a different view of the world with a collection of the best news, features and images, curated by our global development team Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Heappey said the regime in Bamako had actively sought to interfere with the work of both the French and UN missions. German forces have been in Mali since 2013 with up to 1,400 troops as part of the UN mission and have faced increasing difficulties in recent months. They have repeatedly had to suspend reconnaissance patrols after being denied the right to use drones and other aircraft to protect their troops. Among African countries, Ivory Coast said it is now also withdrawing its corps. Forty-six soldiers from Ivory Coast were accused of being mercenaries and have been held for months. The UN Security Council renewed its mandate for UN peacekeepers in Mali for one year on June 29, although the Malian government has resisted calls to allow rights researchers with the mission to move freely. The operation is one of the UN’s largest, with 17,557 soldiers, police, civilians and volunteers. Popular hostility to power and the French has been heightened by social media activity. Mali is among several countries targeted in recent years by Russian disinformation and influence operations. “If the government looked to Wagner for help in information warfare, it might be happy with the results,” said Nyagale Bagayoko, president of the African Security Sector Network. “In the capital and on social media they have won the war of public opinion against the West.” Mali has faced repeated jihadist attacks since 2012, part of a wider surge in violence linked to the Islamic militant group in the Sahel region, which has displaced more than 2.5 million people and killed more than 8,000 in 2022, according to the ACLED, a watchdog group. More recently, tens of thousands have been forced from their villages in Mali during apparent systematic attacks by Islamist armed groups aligned with the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara. The extremists have attacked dozens of villages and massacred dozens of civilians in Mali’s vast northeastern regions of Ménaka and Gao, which border Niger. “Islamist armed groups in northeastern Mali have carried out horrific and seemingly coordinated attacks on villages, massacring civilians, looting homes, and destroying property,” said Jehanne Henry, senior adviser for Africa at Human Rights Watch. “The government of Mali must do more to protect villagers who are at particular risk of attack and provide them with more assistance.” Wagner paramilitaries and Malian forces appear unable to effectively fight the insurgents. Both have been accused of systematic human rights abuses, including a series of indiscriminate massacres. “People judge by the atrocities committed on civilians,” said Binta Sidibe Gascon, of Kisal, an NGO. “Since Wagner arrived … we have seen an exponential increase in the number of civilian casualties.”
