By Enyichukwu Enemanna
German has started a gradual withdrawal of its soldiers from Mali as Berlin prepares to wind up its mission by May next year in Bamako.
Germany had deployed about 1,000 troops to Mali, with a majority of them working near the northern town of Gao where they provide reconnaissance for the UN peacekeeping mission MINUSMA.
The operation has been hampered by disputes with the ruling military junta in Bamako which was followed by the arrival of Russian forces, the Wagner Group.
German commander in Mali, Colonel Heiko Bohnsack, told the daily Tagesspiegel in an interview published on Wednesday that the military has commenced shipping the first components of about 1,300 container loads of equipment from Mali.
According to the commander, the first stages of the withdrawal will involve gradual shipping of military equipment from Mali while the troops will maintain their presence till their mission is fulfilled.
Also on Wednesday, the government in Berlin paved the way for a last one-year extension of the decade-old mission until May 2024, a decision that is still subject to approval by the lower House of Parliament.
MINUSMA was established in 2013 to support foreign and local troops battling Islamist militants but in recent months there have been repeated instances of friction between the Malian authorities and the mission.
MINUSMA has about 12,000 military personnel deployed in the country. The three largest contributors are Chad, Bangladesh and Egypt.
Europe’s relations with Mali have deteriorated since a military coup in 2020 and since the government invited fighters from the Wagner Group, a Kremlin-linked private military company, to support its fight against insurgents.
That prompted France to withdraw its troops in 2022 after almost a decade in Mali.
