UNITED NATIONS (AFP) ― Mali on Wednesday asked the United Nations to send a rapid-reaction force to help end a wave of attacks on U.N. peacekeepers in the north, where Islamist fighters are back on the warpath.
Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop told the U.N. Security Council that it must take “urgent measures” to bolster the U.N. mission in the north after 31 peacekeepers died in a string of brazen assaults.
The U.N. mission known as MINUSMA must have the “appropriate means to fulfil its mandate, protect civilians and the blue helmets who are paying a high price on the ground,” said Diop by video link from Bamako.
“Perhaps the council should consider setting up a rapid intervention force that would be able to fight the terrorist elements,” he said.
Such a force set up in the Democratic Republic of Congo, pairing government soldiers with U.N. troops, managed to beat back some of the myriad groups of rebels roaming the east.
The appeal for more robust action in northern Mali came amid some of the deadliest violence to target a U.N. peace mission in recent years.
A Senegalese soldier was killed Tuesday when a U.N. camp in Kidal came under rocket fire, just days after nine troops from Niger died in an ambush by al-Qaida-linked militants.
In September alone, ten Chadian soldiers were killed by explosive devices, prompting the government in Ndjamena to complain that its troops were being used as “shields” to protect other U.N. deployments in northern Mali.
In all, 31 peacekeepers have died in attacks since the mission was deployed in July 2013 and 66 others have been wounded, according to U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous.
koreaherald@heraldcorp.com
