Senegal’s military says it’s standing by the nation’s commitments to the UN’s peacekeeping mission in neighbouring Mali, after an opposition chief recommended it was withdrawing.
The West African state is among the largest contributors to the MINUSMA pressure in Mali, which is going through an escalating jihadist insurgency.
Ousmane Sonko, a fierce critic of President Macky Sall, stated on Thursday that Senegal had solely offered troops as a result of it had been underneath strain from France, the previous colonial energy.
He made the assault after a Senegalese battalion primarily based in Sevare, central Mali, started its rotation this week, in keeping with MINUSMA.
“We see that Macky Sall has introduced again the few Senegal models there, as a result of they weren’t there as Senegalese, they have been there as a result of France requested to usher in troops,” Sonko stated.
Sonko additionally gave his full-throated assist for Malian strongman Colonel Assimi Goita in his battle towards the jihadists.
Asserting his bid for the presidency in elections in 2024, Sonko stated that if he gained, “we’ll ship troops to assist our Malian brothers and finish this gangrene as soon as and for all.”
In a press release issued hours later, the military stated that the troop change at Sevare was merely a “routine rotation.”
“Opposite to sure studies within the press, Senegal has not withdrawn from Mali,” it stated.
The rotation, it stated, was “a traditional operation designed to exchange one for one the troops which were dedicated (by Senegal) for the reason that onset of the disaster.”
Launched in 2013, MINUSMA — the United Nations Multidimensional Built-in Stabilisation Mission in Mali — is among the UN’s largest and most harmful missions, with round 17,500 troops, police, civilians and volunteers.
Its Senegalese contingent numbers 1,300 troopers, gendarmes and police, in keeping with the military.
Sonko additionally stated he was “encouraging President Assimi Goita as a result of he has not misplaced face.”
Goita heads a junta that compelled out Mali’s elected president, Ibraham Boubacar Keita, in August 2020 and and carried out a second coup in Might 2021.
Since then, Mali has woven shut ties with the Kremlin and fallen out with France, whose final troops left the nation this week greater than 9 and a half years after they first deployed.
