Mali

Some 20 UN peacekeepers serving with the UN Stabilization Mission in Mali, MINUSMA, were injured on Wednesday, after their temporary base came under attack in the restive central region of the country.

Since 2013, when it sent troops to Mali, France has led international efforts to root out Islamist militancy from the Sahel. Yet the jihadist threat has grown. Paris and its partners should reorient their military-centred approach toward helping improve governance in the region.

Mali’s military junta which overthrew former President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta five months ago has been officially dissolved, according to a government decree. … The junta, the National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP), had still remained in place even after the transfer of power to an interim civilian government following the 18 August 18 coup. Dissolution of the junta was among demands made by the regional bloc, the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas).

A hundred jihadists were killed this month in a joint Franco-Malian offensive in the West African country’s lawless center, the Malian army said Tuesday.

The number of internally displaced people in the Sahel has quadrupled in just two years and is rising.

Against the backdrop of a rapidly deteriorating security situation in Mali and the wider Sahel region, the UN peacekeeping chief concluded a visit to the restive northwest African nation on Thursday.  … He also visited the new G5 Sahel Joint Force headquarters, which MINUSMA built with financial backing from the European Union.  

Malian security forces fired tear gas at dozens of demonstrators in the capital Bamako on Wednesday, AFP journalists said, during an unauthorized rally against France’s military role in the country.

President Emmanuel Macron opened the door on Tuesday to withdrawing some troops from Africa’s Sahel region, saying France could “adjust” its operations after successes against Islamist militants and the arrival of more European forces.

The UN Secretary-General António Guterres has strongly condemned another fatal attack carried out against a peacekeeping convoy that left a ‘blue helmet’ from Egypt dead, and another seriously injured on Friday.

Four United Nations peacekeepers were killed and five wounded in central Mali on Wednesday after a convoy struck an explosive device and came under fire, the U.N. said. It was not clear who carried out the attack about 20 km (12 miles) north of the town of Bambara-Maoudé in the Timbuktu region.