German troops have begun to leave Mali as it attempts to wrap up a mission that has been hindered by disagreements with the Bamako military junta and the coming of Russian forces by May of next year.
The majority of the 1,000 German troops that have been sent to Mali are stationed close to the northern town of Gao, where their main duty is to conduct reconnaissance for the MINUSMA UN peacekeeping effort.
According to Colonel Heiko Bohnsack, the German commander in Mali, the military has started transporting the initial parts of the equipment that will fill about 1,300 container loads. The interview was published on Wednesday.
He continued, “The troops will maintain all means to complete their mission while the material in place will gradually be thinned out during the initial stages of the withdrawal.”
Also on Wednesday, the Berlin government cleared the way for a final one-year extension of the ten-year-old mission until May 2024. The lower house of parliament must still approve this decision.
Although MINUSMA was established in 2013 to assist international and local forces battling militants, there have been numerous instances of conflict between the Malian government and the mission recently.
Around 12,000 military personnel are stationed in the nation with MINUSMA. Chad, Bangladesh, and Egypt are the three countries that contribute the most.
Since a military takeover in 2020 and the government’s invitation of fighters from the Wagner Group, a private military firm connected to the Kremlin, to assist in its war against insurgents, relations between Europe and Mali have deteriorated.
After nearly ten years in Mali, France decided to remove its troops as a result in 2022.