A Mali court has sentenced an unidentified man to death for the 2019 murder of three Guinean peacekeepers in the south of the country, the UN mission in Mali said on Wednesday.
The February 22, 2019 attack on five peacekeepers on the Siby road (44 kilometers southwest of Bamako) left three dead. At the time, a Siby elected official said, on condition of anonymity, that it was not a terror attack but “a robbery gone wrong.”
“These are licensed UN peacekeepers en route to Guinea. They were assaulted by thugs who obviously panicked and fired,” said this elected official.
Towards the exit of the blue helmets?
The death penalty has not been applied in Mali since a moratorium on executions was instituted in 1980.
The UN mission, known by its acronym MINUSMA, has come under increased pressure since France, which had a military presence in Mali for nine years, withdrew its last troops from the country in August.
It was created by the United Nations in 2013 to help stabilize a state threatened with collapse under attack by jihadists, but since then the security situation has only deteriorated.
In a report released this month, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said his peacekeepers’ mission was “not viable” without more personnel.
Source: BFM TV
