The UN mission in Mali has ended a decade of deployment in the country on Sunday, meeting a December 31 deadline agreed after Mali's military leaders ordered it to leave.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement published Sunday that MINUSMA had completed its agreed withdrawal by December 31, 2023.
The UN chief praised the mission's "key role" in protecting civilians and supporting the peace process in Mali, which is in the grip of an insurgency and other crises.
More than 300 killed
He also recognised the work of MINUSMA in "ensuring respect for the ceasefire in the context of the 2015 peace and reconciliation agreement" between Bamako and northern rebel groups), as well as its efforts towards restoring state authority.
Mali's ruling junta, which seized power in 2020, in June demanded the departure of the mission, which for the past decade has maintained around 15,000 soldiers and police in the country.
Hundreds of MINUSMA members have been killed in hostile circumstances, mostly blamed on armed groups.
Guterres paid tribute to the "311 MINUSMA personnel who lost their lives and the more than 700 who were injured in the cause of peace".
Liquidation process
A "liquidation phase" will begin from January 1, involving activities such as handing over equipment to the authorities with smaller teams at sites in Gao and Bamako.
Violence has swept the fragile and poor country, spilling over into neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger and inflaming ethnic tensions along the way.
Thousands of civilians and fighters have died and millions have been displaced.
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