Bundeswehr mission in Mali is suspended for the time being

Created: 2022-08-12Updated: 2022-08-12 12:03 PM

Germany is suspending the Bundeswehr mission in West African Mali until further notice.

This was announced by a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense in Berlin.

© Kay Nietfeld/dpa

The Bundeswehr has been deployed in Mali for almost ten years.

But the West African country remains unstable.

The repeated denial of overflight rights now has consequences.

Berlin – Germany is suspending the Bundeswehr mission in West African Mali until further notice.

This was announced by a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense on Friday in Berlin.

The Malian government had repeatedly denied the Bundeswehr overflight rights, it said in justification.

The on-site staff should be rotated with the flight.

In principle, Germany is still willing to take part in the international peace mission, government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit assured.

However, that only makes sense if it is supported by the government there.

Just at the beginning of the week, the head of the political department of the Federal Foreign Office for Africa, Latin America, the Near and Middle East, Christian Buck, traveled to Mali for negotiations.

It was then said that the Malian side had signaled that the rotation of troops could be resumed in the near future.

Federal Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) is said to have only received corresponding assurances in a telephone call to her Malian counterpart Sadio Camara on Thursday.

Mali, with around 20 million inhabitants, has experienced three military coups since 2012 and is considered to be extremely unstable politically.

Since the most recent coup in May 2021, the country has been led by an interim military government tasked with maintaining close ties with Russia.

Since then, the deployment of the UN peacekeeping force Minusma, in which the Bundeswehr is also involved, has been repeatedly impaired.

dpa