The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) now requires financial aid worth $950 million (€715 million) to sustain and reinforce the ongoing military campaign to flush out Islamists in Mali, according to Cote d’Ivoire’s Foreign Minister Charles Koffi Diby.
This development came Monday as Xinhua claimed that the spate of sudden raids and suicide attacks launched by the rebels recently have highlighted the risk of Malian army and its allies becoming mired in a guerrilla war.
Analysts said risks are mounting for French and African forces to become entangled in a messy and sticky guerrilla war as they try to help Mali’s weak army counter suicide bombings, surprise attacks and land mines.
However, Agence France Presse (AFP) stated that the $950 million is twice that of funds pledged by donor countries to the 15-nation ECOWAS to help bring a multinational African military force of up to 8,000 troops being deployed in the strife-torn country.
Diby announced at the start of a meeting of foreign ministers in ECOWAS, which is currently chaired by Cote d’Ivoire, that the sum he had in mind took into account “the demands of an asymetrical war or a drawn-out conflict that the narco-terrorists (…) could bring about,” allowing for West African troop rotations.
This brings “the overall financial estimation to $950 million,” Diby said, without going into any further details.
At the end of January, the international community promised during a conference in Addis Ababa to provide an overall sum of more than $455 million dollars (€338 million) for the African-led International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA) that ECOWAS is putting together, for the Malian army and for humanitarian aid.
At present, 6,000 soldiers are due to be deployed as part of AFISMA, as well as 2,000 Chadian troops pledged by N’Djamena, who would not be part of the Nigerian-led force but would coordinate with it.
“It is vital” that AFISMA, which should eventually “enable the progressive replacement” of French troops who intervened against the armed extremists on January 11, “should dispose of all the necessary resources,” Diby said.
He added that it was also a priority to “protect the Tuareg population against all kinds of abuses”.
The light-skinned Tuareg and Arab communities, sometimes considered to be favourable to the Islamists who imposed strict Sharia law with harsh punishments on northern Mali, have in recent weeks been prey to serious human rights abuses. Witnesses and international non-governmental organisations blame many of these abuses on the Malian army.
The ministerial meeting in Abidjan precedes an ordinary summit of ECOWAS countries, due to be held in Cote d’Ivoire’s political capital, Yamoussoukro, tomorrow and Thursday.
Meanwhile, French warplanes attacked an Islamist base in north Mali at the weekend, wounding four members of the Arab Movement of the Azawad (MAA), after the extremists clashed with Tuareg rebels, MAA and security sources said yesterday.
France sent in troops on January 11 to help the weak Malian army to fight the rebel groups which captured the north of the country in April last year after a military coup and continued to push southward to threaten the Bamako-based transition government which is recognised by the international community.
Since then, thousands of soldiers from African countries have also been deployed to Mali to aid the government troops.
NGuardian
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