This decision comes in a context of already strained relations between Mali and its international partners.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation has given 72 hours to the spokesman of the UN Mission in Mali (Minusma) to leave Mali, according to the press release. 

Olivier Salgado is accused of having published on Twitter "unacceptable information" on the case of the 49 Ivorian soldiers detained for more than a week in Bamako.

The Minusma spokesman, according to Bamako, declared "without any proof, that the Malian authorities would have been informed beforehand of the arrival of the 49 Ivorian soldiers by civilian flight, at the international airport (of Bamako) on Sunday July 10 2022", according to the press release from the Malian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

The press release published on July 20 by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

© Malian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Côte d'Ivoire had requested on July 12 the release "without delay" of its 49 soldiers arrested "unjustly" and accused by the Malian authorities of being "mercenaries" seeking to destabilize the country.

According to Abidjan, the presence of its soldiers within the framework of logistical support operations in Minusma was "well known to the Malian authorities".

Still according to Abidjan, these soldiers were to take over from other Ivorians deployed in Mali as National Support Elements (ENS), a UN procedure allowing contingents of peacekeeping missions to call on service providers outside the UN for logistical support.

This was the eighth rotation of soldiers to come to Mali for this mission, detailed Côte d'Ivoire.

Mali, a landlocked country in the heart of the Sahel, was the scene of two military coups in August 2020 and May 2021. It recently adopted a transition timetable to allow civilians to return to power in March 2024.

Following the adoption of this timetable, the member countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), of which Côte d'Ivoire is a member, lifted the economic and financial sanctions which Mali since January.

The political crisis goes hand in hand with a serious ongoing security crisis since the outbreak, in 2012, of separatist insurgencies and bloody jihadist actions in the north.

(AFP)

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