The United Nations has begun its military mission in Mali by bringing the 6,000 West African troops already in the country under its command at a ceremony in the capital Bamako.
A ceremony, which took place on Monday 1 July, will pave the way for the full strength force of 12,640 UN troops, set to replace the African-led International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA).
Its first task will be to secure the country’s north so that presidential elections can be held on 28 July. The election commission has raised doubts over its ability to stage a free and fair vote at short notice.
The commission’s president, Mamadou Diamountani, said this week it would be “extremely difficult” to get up to eight million voting cards to the electorate in a country where 500,000 people have been displaced by conflict.
The new mission begins work months after 4,000 French troops – deployed in January to fight groups affiliated to al-Qaeda in Mali – began their phased withdrawal. France, Mali’s former colonial ruler, will nonetheless keep up to 1,000 troops in the country.
UN officials and the defence and security chiefs of nine troop-contributing African countries spent the weekend in Bamako engaged in last-minute talks on personnel, equipment and logistics issues ahead of the handover.
Rwandan General Jean-Bosco Kazura, formerly second in command of African Union troops in Sudan’s western Darfur region, will lead the UN mission – known as the Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali, MINUSMA.
AFISMA was put in place by the Economic Community of West African States to help the Malian government tackle the militant groups who had seized large swathes of territory in the north and sought to introduce a harsh form of Sharia law.
The 10-month of control of northern Mali by the al-Qaeda-linked groups effectively ended in January with the launching of the French-led military campaign.
