Germany deliberates pulling out of UN's Mali mission

Germany's government is heatedly debating whether to withdraw troops from the United Nation Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA).

In a statement released Wednesday, Germany's Foreign Ministry said members of the coalition government were still deciding whether to end the Bundeswehr's deployment to Mali, often dubbed the UN's most dangerous mission.

The comment came after the AFP news agency reported that a government source said on Wednesday that German soldiers are to end their involvement in MINUSMA "by the end of 2023 at the latest."

Earlier this week, Britain and Ivory Coast announced that they would be withdrawing from the mission. Egypt pulled out its troops earlier this year while Sweden announced the departure of its forces by June 2023. 

The official mission of the more than 15,000 UN peacekeeping troops is to extend state authority throughout Mali's territory. It's estimated that the central government fully controls as little as 15% of the country, leaving vast swaths of Mali's desert to become a haven for terrorist groups and armed bandits.

Mali: 'Russia's vassal'?

Germany's Foreign and Defense ministries have differing views on whether the Bundeswehr, which has one of the biggest troop contingents within MINUSMA and the largest of any Western nation, should stay or go.

Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock would prefer that the up to 1,400 Bundeswehr soldiers remain in Mali.

"If entire regions fall into the hands of Islamists, if girls can no longer attend school or the whole of Mali becomes Russia's vassal, we will also feel the impact in Europe," she warned in an interview with Germany's Bild am Sonntag newspaper at the end of August.

Russia has become a close ally of Mali's military government, especially since the withdrawal of French troops from the West African nation, and the closing down this year of the European Union's Takuba force and France's Operation Barkhane, launched in 2013 to counter the terrorist insurgency.

Malian Defense Minister Sadio Camara paid tribute to what he called his country's "win-win partnership" with the Kremlin upon the receipt of another batch of Russian-manufactured combat jets and helicopter gunships in August.

About 1,000 mercenaries from the Wagner Group, a Russian private military company funded by an oligarch close to President Vladimir Putin, are also operating alongside domestic forces in Mali, which a US general said cost $10 million a month. Wagner mercenaries in Mali have been accused of involvement in at least six massacres since March, according to an investigation by the Wall Street Journal.

In contrast, German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht has been expressing for months her "doubts" about the willingness of interim President Assimi Goita, who came to power in a coup, to cooperate with the international community.

In mid-August, the Defense Ministry suspended most of its operations for nearly four weeks after the military-led government again denied flyover rights to the UN peacekeeping mission.

Within MINUSMA, Germany is mainly responsible for transporting the wounded by helicopter and for reconnaissance flights. However, Germany can only fulfill this mission to a limited extent as flights are often canceled or delayed by the government, a Defense Ministry spokesperson said on Thursday.

German reconnaissance drones haven't been able to fly since October 11, the spokesperson said, because the government hasn't granted flight permits.

"This, of course, has implications for the execution of the mission and significantly limits it," the spokesperson said.

Sahel expert Ornella Moderan from the Clingendael Institute, a Netherlands-based independent think tank, told DW that, since the end of the Barkhane and Takuba operations, Mali's government seems to be deliberately creating conditions that cause troops to leave voluntarily. That way it can "push out MINUSMA without explicitly demanding the mission's withdrawal."

Moderan said the withdrawal of troops without replacing them could put further pressure on those remaining and push them to leave the country, too.

According to a government source who talked to DW, officials will make a final decision about the fate of Germany's participation in MINUSMA within the next two weeks. The German parliament will vote on the decision.

The current mandate for the Bundeswehr's deployment in Mali expires at the end of May — and it contains a withdrawal clause if the security of German soldiers in Mali is no longer guaranteed.

Bob Barry contributed to this article.

Edited by: Milan Gagnon