creating tension

After Moura report, Malian government accuses UN of ‘espionage’

By Flore Monteau

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Posted on May 19, 2023 14:16

© An armoured Minusma vehicle on patrol in Timbuktu, 9 December 2021. FLORENT VERGNES/AFP — An armoured Minusma vehicle on patrol in Timbuktu, 9 December 2021. FLORENT VERGNES/AFP

In a statement issued on 13 May, the Malian transitional authorities announced the opening of a judicial investigation into “attacks upon the external security of the state […] and military conspiracy.”

A Malian governmental response was expected. One day after the publication of the UN report on the Moura massacre, Colonel Abdoulaye Maïga appeared on national television to read a statement accusing the UN of a “military plot”. The UN had reported at least 500 dead in an operation by the Malian army and its Russian Wagner group supporters in Moura at the end of March 2022.

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