Mali: MINUSMA is the UN’s most dangerous peacekeeping mission since the 1990s

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) warns about the dangers of the planned expansion of the Bundeswehr peacekeeping-mission in Mali and calls for more commitment towards reconciliation in the war-shaken country. “If the Bundeswehr mission is to be more than just a symbolic act of demonstrating loyalty to France, Germany must try to encourage actual reconciliation between the Tuareg, the Arabs, the Peulh and other population groups. So far, the peace agreement for Northern Mali is hardly worth the paper it is written on. There are many critical voices stating that the newly established Ministry of Reconciliation is failing to take action,” said Ulrich Delius, the STP’s Africa-expert, in Göttingen on Thursday.

“The UN’s peacekeeping mission in Mali, MINUSMA, is the bloodiest since the mission in Somalia in the 1990s,” warned Delius. UN peacekeepers and the MINUSMA civilian staff are popular targets for terrorist attacks by Islamist extremists. Thus, there have been 52 attacks since the beginning of the mission in July 2013, leaving 43 MINUSMA staff dead and 128 persons injured. According to information by the UN, a total number of 64 MINUSMA staff have lost their lives. Most recently, Islamist extremists attacked MINUSMA last Tuesday. A civilian employee got killed in an attack on a UN convoy, 25 kilometers to the west of Timbuktu. Two peacekeepers were injured and three civilians got killed on October 24, when their vehicle drove over a mine near the town Tessalit.

The STP warns about false hopes for the mission. It seems quite unrealistic to expect significant effects against human trafficking (as intended when the Dutch government sent out soldiers in spring 2015). There has been no real success so far. “Another problem is that there is no exit strategy,” said Delius, recalling that, in January 2013, the French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, had announced that the French soldiers would be deployed for “a few weeks”. Now, after almost three years, there is still no end to the mission in sight. “France expects MINUSMA to monitor the ceasefire in the unsafe north of the country. However, unlike the French army, the Bundeswehr has no desert experience and no expertise in combat operations in Africa. It also lacks adequate language and cultural knowledge as well as suitable equipment for this region.”

On Wednesday, Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen announced the deployment of up to 650 German soldiers for MINUSMA to support France in its anti-terror mission Barkhane in the Sahel.

Header Photo: Emilia Tjernström via Flickr