Mali Conflict continues to attract global concern

Here is Dr Christopher Fomunyoh's interview with RFI; his take on the situation at hand. Click here to listen to Dr Christopher's interview with RFI 

Dr. Christopher

Delegations from the African Union, United Nations, European Union and the west African regional body ECOWAS, among others, have been meeting in Brussels to discuss Mali's future. 

The rapid progress of French-led military forces against al-Qaeda-linked rebels in the country's north has now put diplomatic focus on how to ensure lasting peace in the country.

Tuesday's talks, reported Al Jazeera's Paul Brennan in Brussels, focused on giving delegates an update on the military situation, and humanitarian affairs. Delegates also discussed the political process following the conflict, and arrangements for holding elections by July 31 as planned.

More than 40 delegations are attending the meeting, which is being hosted by the European Union.

"The priority that they're putting forward is that elections are held as soon as possible," reported Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland from Bamako, the Malian capital. The conference will be focusing on rebuilding Mali's economy and creating structures that allow for all Malians to be represented in government.

Meanwhile, in northern Mali, forces have arrested eight suspected al-Qaeda-linked fighters, as French forces continue a push to take the northeastern city of Kidal. The eight suspects captured in Gao are expected to be transferred to Bamako where they will eventually stand trial. They include six Malians, a Nigerian and an Algerian man. The French push in the northeast involved fighter jets targeted rebel hideouts and fuel depots in the desert on Tuesday, near the Algerian border.

The French defence ministry said 1,800 Chadian troops had entered Kidal to "secure" the Saharan outpost, after days of air strikes in the surrounding mountains where rebels were believed to be hiding in hillside caves.

After a three-week military campaign by French-led forces drove the rebels from most of their strongholds, including the cities of Timbuktu and Gao, dozens of French warplanes on Sunday carried out major air strikes on rebel training and logistics centres in Mali's mountainous northeast, near the Algerian border.

"It is about destroying their rear bases, their depots," Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, told France Inter radio.

"They have taken refuge in the north and the northeast but they can only stay there long-term if they have ways to replenish their supplies."

The al-Qaeda-linked rebels who controlled northern Mali for 10 months have fled into the Adrar des Ifoghas massif in the Kidal region, a mountainous landscape honeycombed with caves.

They are believed to be holding seven French hostages with them, kidnapped in Mali and Niger in 2011 and 2012.

Algeria on Monday also beefed up its positions on the Malian border to prevent "the infiltration of terrorist groups", Mohamed Baba Ali, a member of parliament from the southern town of Tamanrasset, told the AFP news agency.

French withdrawal

French President Francois Hollande said during a visit to Mali on Saturday that while France had plans to pull out from the country, French troops would not leave until it had driven out all the al-Qaeda-linked rebel groups.

"We want to be rapidly relieved by the AFISMA African forces in the cities that we hold," the French foreign minister said.

France says it is eager to hand over security in Mali to some 8,000 African troops, gradually deploying to the country under a UN-backed plan.

During Tuesday's meeting in Brussels, European officials will try to find ways to reinforce military gains [AFP]

In Paris, US Vice President Joe Biden, after meeting with Hollande, backed that demand and said the UN should make the African mission a formal UN peacekeeping operation, a plan UN officials say they are pushing forward.

The EU thinks it can help quickly by releasing some of the 250m euros ($342m) of development aid it froze after a coup in Mali in March last year.

"When a state falls apart, it takes a while to put it back together again ... Nevertheless, we need to try," said a senior EU official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The country is also experiencing a crippling food crisis which has put an estimated 18 million people at risk of starvation across the Sahel.

The United Nations said on Tuesday it had also resumed food aid operations in northern Mali, which were frozen after a French-led offensive began.

"The World Food Programme has relaunched its distribution of food and nutritional supplements in the north of Mali," the UN food agency's spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs told reporters in Geneva.

The International Red Cross said despite the retreat of the rebels, residents who had fled fighting, estimated by the UN at over 350,000, were also hesitant to return home, with only 7,000 in central Mali returning so far.


Source: Al Jazeera and agencies