Credit: Wikipedia Commons /   Ferdinand Reus from Arnhem, Holland /   Fulani settlement in Mali. 

By Gary Raynaldo     DIPLOMATIC TIMES

UNITED NATIONS  –  Unidentified armed individuals attacked the villages of Yoro and Gangafani, in the Mopti region in central Mali, near the border with Burkina Faso on Monday,  killing at least 38 persons and many wounded, the UN reported. It was the latest deadly attack in the West Africa nation Mali.  Nearly 100 people were reportedly killed during an attack on a traditional Dogon hunters’ village in Mali on June 9, Sunday.  Mali has experienced a deadly wave of violence this year from terror attacks and onslaught  between Dogon hunters and Fulani herders. In March, about 150 Malians, including women and children, were killed Saturday in the central Malian village of Ogossagou. The March attack was allegedly committed by members of the Dogon ethnic group.  Monday’s attack is the latest incident in an increasingly violent conflict. The increase in ethnic violence is connected to the spread of militant Islamic conflict that began in northern Mali in 2012.

 “As the Secretary-General has stated repeatedly, the cycle of violence in the centre of Mali must end,” UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told the press at UN headquarters in New York, on Wednesday. “Perpetrators of acts of violence must be brought to justice and efforts to promote reconciliation between communities must be accelerated,” he stressed.

Credit: Wikipedia / At least 95 civilians were killed in an assault on Sobanou-Kou village in the Mopti region of central Mali Sunday June 9, 2019.

$1  BILLION PER YEAR   UN Mission In  Mali  Is The Deadliest In World For Peacekeepers

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

UN Special Representative Recommends Extending  MINUSMA Mandate 

The cycle of deadly violence continues in west Africa nation Mali, just weeks 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 MINUSMA May 19  left one peacekeeper dead. A separate incident in Tessalit left three Chadian peacekeepers injured.  And on April 20,  a UN 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.

Extending the mandate of the UN MINUSMA, which expires on 30 June, will enable it to consolidate political and security gains amid efforts to implement the 2015 Agreement on Peace and Reconciliation, the Organization’s top official in the Sahel nation told the Security Council last week.  Mahamat Khatir Saleh Annadif, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of MINUSMA, said that while the peace process is at a critical stage, there is an opportunity to make progress over the next 6 to 12 months due to the determination of the signatories to the peace agreement.

How is $1 Billion per year MINUSMA operation justified amid continued deadly attacks that seem to be no end to?

“Well, we justify it by… it’s clear to all of us that if the Mission wasn’t there, the situation in Mali would be far worse.  It is the responsibility of all the political actors, the signatories, the armed groups that signed on to the peace accord to ensure that all of these things are put in motion.  The peacekeeping Mission is there to help the people of Mali, to help provide… create a political space, and it is important that those who remain on the outside and continue to perpetrate violence put their weapons down.  And also, there is a need for the international community to help Mali address all the underlying issues, whether it’s poverty, whether it’s issues of climate change, of gender issues, to address those problems that are some of the root causes of that violence.” 

–Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesman for the Secretary-General response to question at June 19, 2019 press briefing.