Credit: gov.uk /  United Kingdom  Chinook helicopters and almost 100 service personnel have been deployed to the French-led operation in Mali since 2018.

By Gary Raynaldo     DIPLOMATIC TIMES

The UK Government has authorised a large-scale British peacekeeping deployment to Eastern Mali, sending 250 troops in 2020 to  help booster the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission, the Defense Secretary announced Monday.  Last month,  the UN Security Council  Friday  extended for one year the mandate of the Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA).  The UK will support the UN’s mandate in Mali. 

FCO Minister for the Commonwealth and United Nations Lord (Tariq) Ahmad of Wimbledon said:

UN peacekeeping is one of the Security Council’s most visible and important ways to respond to conflict, and we are proud of the contribution UK personnel make to this global effort.

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

MINUSMA  MALI is the  deadliest peacekeeping mission in the world. 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.

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.

In a briefing delivered to the UN Security Council on July 10, the Force Commander of MINUSMA, Lieutenant-General Dennis Gyllenspore, said that the Mission has suffered many troop losses due to “frequent, direct and complex attacks on our bases”, adding that his forces need to find different and new ways to operate, become more agile and unpredictable, and react faster.