Mali

According to the UN, so far more than 150 children have been killed in 2019 … The number of child soldiers in armed groups has doubled comparing to the same period in 2018, and more than 900 schools remain closed due to insecurity.

The United Kingdom is to send a contingent of 250 troops to Mali next year, to support the UN’s peacekeeping operation in the country, MINUSMA. A statement, released via the UK Ministry of Defence website on Monday, said that the soldiers were being deployed in recognition of increased instability in the Sahel region of North Africa, with the aim of delivering “long-term and sustainable peace in Mali”.

The EU's high representative Federica Mogherini pledged €138m extra to the G5 Sahel Force in order to be better equipped to fight insurgency and terrorism in the Sahel region.

Hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing their homes in Mali, where deadly attacks on villages are destabilising an already critical situation in the country’s centre. More than 200,000 people have fled since the start of the year, almost six times the number that were displaced in the same period last year, according to the Rapid Response Mechanism, a tracking and alert system that helps humanitarian organisations respond to vulnerable people.

Islamist attacks are spreading so fast in West Africa that the region should consider bolstering its response beyond current military efforts, and donors should back such a move, the head of the United Nations said on Wednesday. Groups with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State have strengthened their foothold across the arid Sahel this year, making large swathes of territory ungovernable and stoking local ethnic violence, especially in Mali and Burkina Faso.

The United Kingdom will keep its three Chinook transport helicopters in Mali for another six months, where they will continue to support the French-led Operation Barkhane counterterrorism operation. … The British helicopters bring to the Barkhane force the capability to carry, in a single rotation, up to 5 tonnes of cargo, or forty soldiers, from Gao to isolated sites.

At least 23 people have been killed and 300 missing after an attack on Sunday on a village of Fulani herders in central Mali where communal violence has surged in recent months, a local mayor said.

Unidentified gunmen on motorcycles attacked two villages in central Mali, killing at least 41 people in a part of the country where ethnic reprisal attacks surged in recent months, a local mayor said.

The G5 Sahel force includes Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania, Niger as well as Mali, and people in Bamako do not want its headquarters based there.

Addressing the Security Council at UN Headquarters in New York on Wednesday, the head of the UN Mission in Mali, MINUSMA, said that amid ongoing violence, including scores of civilian deaths and deadly attacks on UN peacekeepers, a critical phase of the peace process had now been reached. Mahamat Saleh Annadif expressed his belief that the existing peace accord between armed groups and the Malian Government still provides opportunities for real progress, over the next six to 12 months.