After Sweden and Egypt, the United Kingdom and Côte d’Ivoire announced the withdrawal of their peacekeepers present within the framework of MINUSMA, the mission of the UN.
By Morgane the cam
In Bamako, the scenario of the last months – a succession of ruptures between the junta in power and its foreign partners – is still repeating itself. After having put an end, in August, at ten years of military presence in Mali with the departure of the last soldier of the anti -terrorist operation “Barkhane”, France this time decided to suspend its public development assistance (APD).
The decision, made “two or three weeks ago” according to a French diplomatic source, has not been the subject of official communication from Paris. But it is denounced in a letter sent to Emmanuel Macron, Tuesday, November 15, by southern coordination, a collective of French NGOs of international solidarity. This letter, signed by 35 French organizations active in Mali and of which Le Monde obtained a copy, claims the president to “review [his] position”.
The suspension of public development aid allocated by Paris “will result in the cessation of essential or even vital activities carried out […] for the benefit of populations in a situation of great poverty”, it is written. Currently, 35 % of Malians, or 7.5 million people, need assistance. According to South Coordination, the French APD judgment calls into question nearly 70 development projects underway or planned in the country in the coming years.
“who will be the next to slam the door?”
In February, France had already started to close the aid taps, while nearly a thousand mercenaries of the Russian private security group Wagner had just landed on Malian territory: 60 million euros, Of the 100 million APDs provided on average each year by France, had been canceled. Now, almost everything has jumped: only purely humanitarian aid (around 8 million euros per year) is maintained.
This suspension intervenes in a context of growing isolation of Mali, maintained by the military in power: since their double coup of 2020 and 2021, these have not stopped pushing their traditional allies towards the exit , as evidenced, as of January 2022, the expulsion of the French ambassador.
At the beginning of November, the decision of the Czech Republic to close its embassy in Bamako due to “the degradation of the situation in Mali and the distance from this country in Europe” sowed doubt in Western Chancellery Present in the capital as to the future of their cooperation with Mali. “We are wondering more and more who will be the next to slam the door,” slips a diplomat.
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