BAMAKO (Reuters) – Mali’s foreign ministry said Chad plans to deploy 1,000 additional troops to Mali in support of forces engaged in fighting against insurgents as France reduces its military presence in the Sahel region.
There are nearly 1,400 Chadian soldiers among the 13,000 peacekeepers of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (Minusma) present in northern and central Mali where Islamist insurgents are rife despite the struggle for nine years. years by international forces to neutralize them.
This new deployment should make it possible to reinforce these units as well as other Chadian forces at the time when France initiated the reduction of the personnel of Operation Barkhane, which amounted to approximately 5,100 men, specified the Malian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. in a press release released on Friday evening.
“The deployment comes within a bilateral framework and at the request of the government of Chad, for the reinforcement of its contingent in the North of Mali, following the reconfiguration of the Barkhane force”, one can read in the press release.
Emmanuel Macron canceled the visit scheduled for December 20 and 21 in Mali due to the health situation linked to the progression of the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
Azem Bermendoa, spokesman for the Chadian government, told Reuters on Saturday that additional troops would soon be sent to Mali, without specifying their number or the timing of their deployment.
“After the withdrawal of the French troops, it seemed urgent to us to strengthen the operational and tactical capacities of our contingent while waiting for the Malian army and the blue helmets to reorganize their deployments,” he said.
(Report Tiemoko Diallo and Mahamat Ramadane, Cooper Inveen editorial staff, French version Gwénaëlle Barzic)
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