The AU wants to increase the strength in Mali, request logistical support to UN

ADDIS ABABA - The Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the African Union (AU) decided Friday night to increase the size of the African force in Mali and urged the Security Council of the UN to provide temporary emergency logistical support to accelerate its deployment.

The CPS supports the AU and ECOWAS (Economic Community of the States of West Africa) in collaboration with the UN, the EU and other partners to revise the operational concept Misma (Mission International support to Mali) (...) to increase the size of the Misma, according to a statement issued after a summit in Addis Ababa.

The Council called on Member States of the AU, willing to provide troops to Misma, inform the AU Commissions and CEDEO within a week, to facilitate efforts to strengthen the misma and appropriate arrangements for their deployment as soon as possible.

Increasing numbers include the integration of troops provided by Chad and other contingents in preparation, the AU continues in this text.

The AU Commissioner for Peace and Security, Ramtane Lamamra, refused to quantify the expected increase in enrollment. The number will be that the Chiefs of Staff, working to update the operational concept, we provide, he told the press.

But we know with certainty, given the initial assumptions on which they work, the size of the force will have to be increased significantly, he added.


Moreover, in its statement, the CPS press the Security Council to authorize (...) the immediate establishment by the UN of temporary measures that will allow the Misma deploy rapidly and effectively fulfill its mandate.

Must resort to extraordinary measures within the UN to meet urgent needs, including the provision of necessary logistics to Misma such as troop transport, but also food rations, medicines or field hospitals, said Lamamra.

It is accompanied by the emergency by providing logistical support through Temporary Assistance Emergency Budget Operations Peacekeeping UN, he said.

Logistics remains a serious obstacle to the deployment of Misma Mali, set up for several months by ECOWAS to help Malian forces against armed Islamist groups who took control of the northern half of the country in mid-2012. The Misma controlled by a Nigerian general, Shehu Abdulkadir, was endorsed by the resolution 2085 of the Security Council of the UN in December.

The CEDEO initially planned to provide 4,000 men, of which less than one thousand arrived in Mali. Chad, not a member of ECOWAS, for its part, began to send 2,000 troops to support it.

Mid-January offensive Islamist groups towards Bamako triggered the emergency response to the request of the Government of Mali, French troops have launched an offensive against, with the Malian army and conquered many cities under the control of these groups.

The CPS has expressed his satisfaction on Friday night is the French intervention in Mali (...) allowed to block Islamist offensive.

Once revised, the new operational concept should be subject to further approval of the Security Council of the UN.

The situation in Mali is the center of the semi-annual Summit of Heads of State of the AU, Sunday and Monday in Addis Ababa, which will be followed the next day, January 29, a conference of donors for Mali to finance non- only Misma but also the formation and restructuring of Malian forces.