The Bundeswehr is suspending its deployment in the West African crisis country Mali until further notice due to disagreements with the government there. The Federal Ministry of Defense justified the decision on Friday by saying that the Malian military government had once again denied the UN stabilization mission Minusma overflight rights.
Germany is suspending the Bundeswehr mission in West African Mali until further notice. This was announced by a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense on Friday in Berlin. The Malian government had repeatedly denied the Bundeswehr overflight rights, it said in justification. With the flight, the staff on site should be rotated.
In principle, Germany is still willing to take part in the international peace mission, government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit assured. However, that only makes sense if it is supported by the government there.
At the beginning of the week, the head of the political department of the Federal Foreign Office for Africa, Latin America, the Near and Middle East, Christian Buck, traveled to Mali for negotiations. It was then said that the Malian side had signaled that the rotation of troops could be resumed in the near future.
Federal Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) is said to have only received corresponding assurances in a telephone call to her Malian counterpart Sadio Camara on Thursday.
Mali, with around 20 million inhabitants, has experienced three military coups since 2012 and is considered to be extremely unstable politically. Since the most recent coup in May 2021, the country has been led by an interim military government tasked with maintaining close ties with Russia. Since then, the deployment of the UN peacekeeping force Minusma, in which the Bundeswehr is also involved, has been repeatedly impaired.
The Bundestag Defense Commissioner, Eva Högl (SPD), had previously called for the consequences of the delayed rescue of local forces from Afghanistan for the Bundeswehr mission in Mali Pull. “It is important to prepare for all eventualities early and as best as possible,” said Högl in view of the debate about an early German withdrawal from Maliden newspapers of the editorial network Germany (RND) on Friday.
This also applies to German responsibility towards the deployed local staff. “Here it is important to take into account the lessons learned from the Afghanistan mission,” said the SPD politician. The Taliban overran the country in the midst of Western troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and regained power in mid-August 2021. As a result, many local workers were unable to leave the country.
The chairman of the Afghan local staff sponsorship network, Marcus Grotian, told the RND newspapers: “We are demanding a concept from the federal government on how to deal with local staff in the future – for example in Mali. We will make sure that people there are also there to help.”
Germany has assured more than 23,600 local workers from Afghanistan and their families that they will leave the country. According to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, 17,556 have come to Germany so far. According to Högl, it is unclear how many local staff the Bundeswehr employs in Mali.
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