The UN peacekeeping operation in Mali is poised to complete its drawdown on Sunday following a decade of multifaceted efforts to support the West African nation and its people after Malian authorities requested earlier this year to end the mission by 31 December.
Heightened tensions and the increasingly hostile presence of armed groups in northern Mali are likely to impede the departure of the UN Stabilization Mission there (MINUSMA), the UN said in a note to correspondents issued on Saturday.
The Security Council on Friday unanimously approved the complete withdrawal of UN peacekeeping forces in Mali, although it will take six months for the final “blue helmets” to depart.
The UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Tuesday he deeply regrets Mali’s recent decision to declare the top UN human rights representative as persona non grata.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Monday called on Malian authorities to rescind their expulsion order for his top representative in the country.
Secretary-General António Guterres “strongly condemns” an attack against a UN police patrol in northern Mali that claimed the lives of two Nigerian peacekeepers, according to his spokesperson.
UN troop rotations in the peacekeeping mission in Mali (MINUSMA) resumed on Monday with a new approval mechanism one month after they were suspended by the ruling junta, which accused 49 Ivorian soldiers of entering the country without permission.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Wednesday echoed strong condemnation from the Security Council and elsewhere, of the killing of two more UN peacekeepers in northern Mali.
