The UN has had a peacekeeping mission in Mali for almost 60 years and is widely known as the deadliest place to be a UN officer. The UN plans to decrease their involvement fully by December, 31 of 2023 with the new Security Council mandate. Close to 13,000 uniformed officers as well as civilian staff will leave Mali and all of their equipment will be sent to various missions around the world or to the country that provided it. The push to get out of Mali is due to an attack on a convoy leaving the Kidal region heading towards Goa, on this convey they suffered two IED attacks.
I think that this article will have a major impact on the region as the UN has played a vital role in stabilizing this region for the last 60 years. The decision to leave brings up questions of can they can leave peacefully because of the increased tensions as well as the presence of arms in Northern Mali. Overall, this is a good decision to get out of Mali because of the amount of money it was taking to keep peacekeepers safe and the country stabilized. The constant attacks of soldiers, expenses to stay involved keep increasing, and increased tensions led to the UN wanting to pull out after 60 years of involvement.
This connects to our class because we discuss things like power vacuums which could seriously become an outcome in Mali once the peacekeepers leave. They have had an increase of terrorism presence across the country and if no other country comes into help it could lead to a terrorist takeover. You can also look at this through the perspective of a realist, with the idea that even though there are still major problems all across Mali its not in the UN’s national interest to stay involved.