Credit: Wikipedia Commons / Fulani herders in the arid region of Gao,  Northern Mali, west Africa

By Gary Raynaldo      DIPLOMATIC  TIMES

UNITED NATIONS   –   What is happening in the West African nation of Mali is quite unprecedented. The once peaceful country has descended into a cycle  of deadly ethnic and Islamist violence during the past few years.  In early June, tens of thousands of protesters marched in Mali’s capital Bamako, to protest what they described as President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita’s failure to stop a surge of violence in the center of the country. The demonstrations in Bamako condemned the killing of some 160 people in the Ogossagou, a village belonging to the Muslim Fulani ethnic group of herders in the Mopti region, on March 23.  Mali has experienced a deadly wave of violence this year from terror attacks and onslaught  between Dogon hunters and Fulani herders.  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 June 17,  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.  Some 500 civilians have been killed since January 2018 in ethnic violence.  More than 200 people have been killed by anti-jihadist self-defense groups in Mali since the start of this year, according to the UN.

“Too much blood has been spilled. It has to stop or there will be no life left in the centre of Mali,”

-said one demonstrator, Habitatou Diallo, at a protest in Mali city Bamako Friday June 21, 2019,  as reported by France24. 

UN, EU Joint High-Level Peacekeeping Mission In Mali Addresses Security and  Defense Police Amid Violence

Credit: By Gary Raynaldo /  United Nations world headquarters in New York

A joint high-level mission of the United Nations and the European Union, led by the UN Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, and the EU Deputy-Secretary-General for Common Security and Defense Policy and Crisis Response of the European External Action Service, Pedro Serrano, concluded a three-day official visit in Bamako Friday. The objectives of the joint visit were to exchange with Malian authorities and other key stakeholders on ways to enhance support by the UN and the EU to accelerate the implementation of the peace agreement and the restoration of State authority in northern and central Mali as well as to strengthen the partnership between the two organizations in the country “They travelled to the Mopti region, where they met with authorities and civil society actors working on intercommunal reconciliation.  They were accompanied by the head of the UN Peacekeeping mission, Mahamat Annadif, and they also visited UN and European Union-supported infrastructure projects, ” Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesman for the UN Secretary-General said Friday.

UN  MINUSMA Investigates Attacks in Mali

Credit:  UN Photo / Harandane Dicko /  Dozens of civilians were killed during an attack on the village Sobana De, in the Mopti region of central Mali, on 9 June. The Human Rights Division and the Protection of Civilians Unit of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) are conducting an investigation into the attack, with the support of UNPOL Technical and Scientific Police Unit officers.

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

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.