UN says peacekeepers’ lives in danger in Mali

DAKAR: UN peacekeepers made an early withdrawal from their camp at Tessalit in northern Mali because their “lives were in danger”, the United Nations mission said on Sunday.

Malian troops on Saturday took over the Tessalit camp, the army said on social media, the first handover in the Kidal region where clashes with armed groups have flared recently. The withdrawal of the UN stabilisation mission in Mali (MINUSMA) after 13 years has ignited fears that fighting will intensify between troops and armed factions for control of the territory.

The pullout was completed “in an extremely tense and degraded security context putting in danger the lives of personnel”, according to a MINUSMA statement received on Sunday. UN staff had previously been “forced to shelter in bunkers several times because of shooting”, the statement said. It gave the example of October 19, when incoming fire targeted a C130 transport plane on landing at Tessalit. No injuries or serious damage were recorded.

Before quitting the base, MINUSMA said it took “the difficult decision to destroy, deactivate or put out of service expensive equipment such as vehicles, munitions, generators and other items”. The last convoy left Tessalit on Saturday by road headin.