Les contingents du Niger et du Bangladesh lors d’une opération militaire à Ansongo.  Photo MINUSMA/Marco Dormino

By Gary Raynaldo   DIPLOMATIC TIMES

UNITED  NATIONS   –   The cycle of deadly violence continues in west Africa nation Mali, just one month after its Prime Minister resigned along with the entire government over a failure  to  stem the tide in ethnic and  jihadist killings. A violent attack against the United Nation’s Integrated Stabilization Mission for Mali (MINUSMA)  left one peacekeeper dead on Saturday, the UN confirmed.  A separate incident in Tessalit left three Chadian peacekeepers injured. The deadly attack drew strong  strong condemnation from UN Secretary-General António Guterres. 

Mr. Guterres is “deeply saddened at the death of a Nigerian peacekeeper who succumbed to his wounds following the armed attack by unidentified assailants in Timbuktu”, said his spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric,  in a statement issued that evening.

UN Mission In West Africa Mali  Is The Deadliest In The World For Peacekeepers

Credit: /UN_MINUSMA /Harandane Dicko /  MINUSMA Peacekeeping troops based in Kidal in the extreme north of Mali.

Last month on April 20,  a United Nations peacekeeper from Egypt was killed and four others injured in an improvised explosive device attack on a convoy in central Mali’s Mopti region.  Since 2013, when MINUSMA deployed,   nearly 200 peacekeepers have died in Mali, including close to  120 killed during hostilities.   The deadly violence has spiraled out of control this year, in particular, with no end in sight despite the presence of thousands of UN and international peacekeeping troops in Mali,  and across the Sahel region. 

On March 23,  some 160 people were killed in the village of Ogossagou near the border with Burkina Faso.  This attack was the single deadliest in Mali since the conflict in the country’s north with separatist groups and a jihadi insurgency in 2012.

MINUSMA continues to be targeted by terrorist organisations

In January, ten Chadian peacekeepers died after an attack on the MINUSMA camp in Aguelhok, and two Sri Lankan peacekeepers were killed in an attack on a convoy in Mopti. On 22 February, three Guinean peacekeepers were killed in an attack against the vehicle in which they were travelling near Siby (region of Bamako).  On March 17, a terror attack on an army camp in central Mali killed 21 soldiers after assailants attacked a Malian armed forces camp in Dioura in north‑west Mopti town in the centre of the country.   A  Mali-based al-Qaeda affiliate said it had carried out that   attack. 

MINUSMA was established in Mali by Security Council resolution 2100 of 25 April 2013 to support political processes in that country and carry out a number of security-related tasks. In 2012, Islamist radicals linked to al-Qaeda hijacked an uprising by ethnic Tuareg people and went on to seize cities across northern Mali, holding on for nearly a year until they were forced out by a French military intervention, according to the Washington Post. When the 11,000 U.N. troops arrived in 2013, they were meant to protect a fledgling peace deal and train the Malian army. But Islamist extremists regrouped across the region. It did not take long before the militants started targeting peacekeepers, whom they dubbed “Crusader occupation forces.”  MINUSMA, which deploys 15,000 troops in the region,  is set to expire June 30, 2019, but is expected to be extended by the UN Security Council. 

UN Vows Mali Peacekeeping Mission Will Continue Despite Deadly Attacks 

“MINUSMA is to support the Malian State through the protection of civilians,” 

France’s UN Ambassador François Delattre  , speaking as President of the UN Security Council,  proclaimed in Mali at a press conference in March.

When asked at the Noon press briefing Thursday at the United Nations what steps is UN Secretary General Guterres is taking to make MINUSMA less dangerous for peacekeepers,   his spokesman,  Stéphane Dujarric,  said the danger comes from those who  are standing against the peace process, armed groups, terrorist group who operate in the region.

“What we have done for our part with the peacekeeping mission is done our best to upgrade, to work with Member States to upgrade the equipment that a lot of the troops are using.  The Chadian contingent has really been the contingent that has been the hardest hit.  We have improved the equipment that they have, how they operate with better support, so we are trying to mitigate the risks, but there needs to be a political solution and which the United Nations through the mission is very much supportive of the Government and all the parties that are involved in the peace negotiations on that end, ”  UNSG  spokesman,  Stéphane Dujarric.