Mali: the difficult deployment of the reconstituted army in Kidal

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Last week, the second contingent of the Operational Mechanism of Command (MOC) at the end of training in Gao, had taken the road for Kidal, a city still under the control of the ex-rebels. The latter asked the contingent made up of a hundred people from the reconstituted Malian army to turn back. What was done. Another example of the difficulty of seeing the reconstituted Malian army redeploy fully to Kidal.

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With our correspondent in Bamako , Serge Daniel

Officially, two reasons are put forward for the return to Gao of the contingent made up of a hundred reconstituted Fama soldiers. First, everyone says they want to avoid the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. But then why did you let the convoy leave Gao? No answer yet.

Then, according to an ex-rebellion official interviewed by the Malian Press Agency (AMAP), the ex-rebels of Kidal demand the implementation of a decision accepted by all the signatories of the peace agreement and by of the technical security commission. This provision specifies that if it is an officer of the regular army who commands the reconstituted Armed Forces contingents back in Kidal, the contingent commands from other regions, notably Timbuktu and Gao, must return respectively to the CMA ( ex-rebellion) and to the combatants of the Platform.

It is one of a new blockage in the process of returning the Malian army reconstituted on the spot. Since February, several hundred soldiers from the reconstituted army have arrived in Kidal. They have not yet started patrolling outside the camp. And probably impatient or tired to remain in this posture, three of the soldiers deserted with weapons and luggage.

In addition, Colonel Abba Soumaré, of the Operational Mechanism of Command (MOC) of Gao, assassinated Thursday in this main city in the north of Mali by armed men, was buried this Friday, May 15.

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