The Swedes in the most dangerous UN effort

- Since last year and until today there is no security. The government, the UN and Sweden have lost their grip, says Sayed Ali, who runs a shop in the city of Timbuktu.

For over five years, Sweden has participated in the UN peacekeeping effort in Mali, West Africa. Sweden contributes with an intelligence association of 250 soldiers and they have their base Camp Nobel outside the city of Timbuktu. So far, the effort has cost over SEK 3 billion.

Sweden has been involved in preventing militant Islamists from taking control of the country.

It was in 2012-2013 that jihadists took over the northern parts of the country and were on their way to the capital Bamako in the south. France sent troops that urgently stopped them and after that the UN effort MINUSMA was formed in which Sweden has been participating since the fall of 2014.

The operation is the most dangerous UN mission. More than 200 UN soldiers have been killed, but the Swedish force has managed without dead soldiers.

In and around Timbuktu, Sweden has created relative security. By contrast, jihadist attacks have intensified in northern and central Mali and the ethnic conflicts have deepened.

"In central Mali, it is the absence of the Malian state and security forces that creates a vacuum that terrorist groups enter and take," says Jesper Sparre, chief of staff for Mali 10.

Over the past year, several very bloody attacks have taken place. In March, several villages were destroyed and over 150 people were killed. In a suspected revenge attack, at least 95 people were killed.

In addition, Mali's army has been hit by several terrorist attacks, in an IS act in November, 53 soldiers were killed.

According to analysts, the Mali government has not done enough to fight terrorists and stave off ethnic contradictions. And the UN effort MINUSMA does not have the resources and conditions to protect the civilian population from the rising violence.

If violence continues at the same level, writes researchers at the Foreign Policy Institute in Norway, it could lead to ethnic cleansing.

Despite the setbacks, Sweden's participation in the UN effort in Mali continues. But the Swedish contingent will now move east, from Timbuktu to the city of Gao, where Sweden is considered to be able to make more use. The plans are to stay for many years to come.

- The UN has not done anything in the last five years. The conflicts have gotten worse, says shop owner Omar Mohammed in Timbuktu.