The German government on Wednesday endorsed the withdrawal by May 2024 of its troops engaged in the Minusma blue helmets mission in Mali due to tensions with the ruling junta.
Meeting in the Council of Ministers, the government of Olaf Scholz confirmed in a press release that the German soldiers of the Bundeswehr would gradually leave the country over the next twelve months.
Conditions that are no longer met
This decision to withdraw from Mali was announced by Berlin at the end of 2022. Berlin considers that the conditions are no longer met to continue to participate in Minusma, in which Germany has participated since 2013.
The country, the scene of two military coups in 2022, has been caught since 2015 in a spiral of jihadist violence that appeared in Mali and Niger a few years earlier and which has spread beyond their borders.
The military in power have moved away from the West to get closer to Russia in particular.
With around a thousand soldiers, Germany is the largest Western contributor to the difficult UN mission to help stabilize that country.
"
Whether we like it or not, what is happening in the Sahel affects us
," said Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, quoted in a statement on Wednesday.
This is why Berlin intends to stay in the Sahel region, and reorient its commitment in the areas of security in Niger, Mauritania and the Gulf of Guinea states, she said.
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To maintain pressure on jihadist groups active in the Sahel region, several countries wish to strengthen cooperation in particular with Niger, considered a more reliable partner than Mali.
The German government decided in April to send 60 soldiers to this country to take part in a new mission led by the European Union.
The violence in Mali has claimed more than 10,000 lives over the past seven years - civilians and soldiers - according to NGOs, and some two million displaced.
Minusma, with around 12,000 soldiers deployed in Mali, is the UN mission that has suffered the most losses in the world in recent years.
Since its creation in 2013, 185 of its members have died in hostile acts.