US orders non-essential personnel to leave Mali amid deteriorating security

July 30 () –

The US State Department has ordered its non-essential employees in Mali to leave the African country to leave the country due to “the increased risk of terrorist attacks in areas frequented by Westerners.”

“Terrorist and armed groups continue to plot kidnappings and attacks in Mali. They can strike with little or no warning, targeting nightclubs, hotels, restaurants, places of worship, international diplomatic missions and other places frequented by Westerners,” according to the travel alert. published this Saturday by the Department of State.

“The US Embassy,” the mission recalls, “continues to have a limited capacity to provide emergency assistance to US citizens in Mali.”

Mali is led by Colonel Assimi Goita, leader of the coup military junta, which led the coup against Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in August 2020 and subsequently led a second coup in May 2021 against the transitional authorities of Mali –moment in which he overthrew the president and the prime minister, Bah Ndaw and Moctar Ouane–, seizing power.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) (ECOWAS) imposed sanctions on Mali after the postponement of the elections scheduled for February and proposed a period of between 12 to 18 months for the Malian coup plotters to hand over power to civilian authorities to through new elections, although the board recently announced a two-year extension of the transition period.

The Deputy Secretary General for UN Peacekeeping Operations, Frenchman Jean-Pierre Lacroix, began a visit to the African country last weekend to discuss with the military junta the profound deterioration in relations experienced in recent months that has ended up putting a question about the performance of the United Nations mission in the country, MINUSMA, whose spokesman was expelled from the country last week.

Lacroix was officially in Mali until Thursday the 28th to discuss the one-year extension of MINUSMA’s mandate, a decision received without much enthusiasm by the Malian military, which in recent months has strengthened its collaboration with Russia amid the alleged deployment in the country of mercenaries of the Russian Wagner group, something that has been denied by Bamako and Moscow, which speak of regular military cooperation.