A team from the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, met with the transitional government in Mali to discuss the status of the 46 Ivorian soldiers who have been detained since July 10.
According to the Malian president on Facebook, Col. Assimi Gota, the country’s military chief, welcomed the Ecowas leaders when they arrived at the Modibo Keita International Airport in Bamako on Thursday.
The mission includes the president of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo, the foreign minister of Togo, Robert Dussey, and the mediator for Mali, Goodluck Jonathan.
Due to “calendar restrictions,” the military-led government has moved forward the Ecowas delegation’s arrival to Thursday. They were supposed to show up two days sooner.
The presidents of Senegal and Togo, Macky Sall and Faure Gnassingbe, were to be included in the delegation, it was reported last Thursday during an emergency Ecowas session held in New York that day in conjunction with the 77th session of the UN General Assembly.
Umaro Sissoco Embalo, the chair of Ecowas, had made a suggestion that Mali would face new sanctions if it kept the 46 Ivorian soldiers in detention.
Abdoulaye Diop, the foreign minister of Mali, declared that his nation will defy any order to detain the soldiers who were thought to be mercenaries.
