UN peacekeeping mission wraps up Mali deployment after being ordered out

UN mission in Mali completes withdrawal, UN chief praises its "key role" in protecting civilians & supporting peace process.

The UN mission in Mali ended a decade of deployment in the crisis-wracked country on Sunday, meeting a December 31 deadline agreed after Mali’s military leaders ordered it to leave.

The UN stabilisation mission, United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), had been in place since 2013, and its withdrawal is igniting fears that fighting will intensify between troops and armed factions.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement on December 31 that MINUSMA had completed its agreed withdrawal by December 31.

A “liquidation phase” will begin from January 1, involving activities such as handing over equipment to the authorities with smaller teams at sites in Gao and Bamako.

The UN chief praised the missions’s “key role” in protecting civilians and supporting the peace process in Maliwhich is in the grip of jihadist violence and other crises.

Violence has swept the fragile and poor country, spilling over into neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger and inflaming ethnic tensions along the way.

Mr. Guterreas also recognised the work of MINUSMA in “ensuring respect for the ceasefire in the context of the 2015 peace and reconciliation agreement” between Bamako and northern rebel groups), as well as its efforts towards restoring state authority.