UK to withdraw Mali peacekeeping troops over PMC Wagner mercenaries’ interference
UK’s Armed Forces Minister James Heappey, on Nov 14, said that Britain is withdrawing the 300-strong armed forces stationed in Mali since 2020.
UK’s Defense Ministry on Monday announced that it is withdrawing its troop from the peacekeeping missions in Mali citing the West African nation’s growing reliance on Russian mercenaries PMC Wagner also known as “Putin’s shadow army.” Mali’s security situation has undermined to “significantly worse” due to the ruling junta’s alleged partnership with the private Russian military force.
The Russian mercenaries in Africa have been linked to massacres of Malian civilians in cooperation with the Malian Army, which shifted its trust from the traditional ally France to Moscow. Russian private paramilitary group Wagner is allegedly the de facto private army that is suspected of having close links with President Putin.
Wagner ‘bunch of murderous, human rights-abusing thugs’: UK Armed Forces Minister
UK’s Armed Forces Minister James Heappey, on Nov 14, said that Britain is withdrawing the 300-strong armed forces stationed in Mali since 2020, according to Associated Press. This, he noted, is part of a United Nations peacekeeping mission that will now exit earlier than planned.
Heappey did not provide any specific timeline for a complete troop pullout. UK armed forces exit comes shortly after France pulled out its own forces earlier this year over deteriorating ties with the military Junta that seized power in Mali in 2020.
Malian forces have turned to Russia to combat the decade-long jihadist insurgency by armed groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. The political landscape in Mali has remained tumultuous since 2021 when the Malian military overthrew the then President Bah N’daw, Prime Minister Moctar Ouane, and Minister of Defence Souleymane Doucouré in a coup d’état and installed Assimi Goita, the Malian colonel as the head of the state.
Addressing the lawmakers in the House of Commons, UK’sArmed Forces Minister James Heappey labelled the PMC Wagner as “a bunch of murderous, human rights-abusing thugs.” Tensions have escalated between Mali, its African neighbours, and the West after Mali’s government hosted the Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group to be deployed on its soil.
Heappy said that the “responsibility for all of this [British troop withdrawal] sits in Bamako,” Mali’s capital. “Two coups in three years have undermined international efforts to advance peace,” he reminded.
Russian mercenary Wagner, that is also fighting alongside the Russian armed forces in Ukraine, is known for its brutality. In one such incident recently Wagner soldiers executed their own, a Russian fighter, Yevgenny Nuzhin, 55, with a sledgehammer for switching sides to fight for the Ukrainians, and for committing treason. Wagner-linked channel on Telegram shared the disturbing taped video titled “The hammer of revenge” where a Russian mercenary smashed the head of Russia with a sledgehammer as he confessed desertion. Yvgeny Prigozhin, Putin’s ally behind the paramilitary Wagner Group, justified the gory act of Wagner saying: “A dog receives a dog’s death.”
World’s most dangerous mercenaries
Shadowy Wagner Group is dubbed as the world’s most dangerous mercenaries. But Kremlin rarely acknowledges its existence which renders a minimum of accountability from these fighters. Even though the private militia may be illegal in Moscow itself, its combatants are on the frontline fighting the war in Ukraine and operate in at least 30 countries. “The Wagner Group is linked to mass human rights abuses and the Malian government’s partnership with the Wagner Group is counterproductive to lasting stability and security in their region,” UK’s Armed Forces Minister James Heappey, said on Nov 14.
An estimated 600 and 1,000 Wagner fighters arrived in the strategic west African country last year. Since then, the data from the NGO Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), suggests as many as 456 civilians have been killed in at least nine incidents involving the group. The most deadly incident involving Wagner in Mali occurred in March this year when its fighters carried out a brutal mass massacre in Moura, a village controlled by Islamist extremists killing more than 380 men in just four days. It is speculated that the Malian military hired the Wagner mercenaries whom they term “Russian instructors” for an estimated rate of $10m a month which is paid mostly in cash.
