Nu er afrikanerne enige om det, og snart skal FN Sikkerhedsråd tage stilling til planen, efter at islamister har overtaget kontrollen med hele den nordlige del af Mali – et enormt ørkenagtigt område i det vestafrikanske Sahel-land.
The African Union (AU) has endorsed the decision by West Africa’s regional bloc Ecowas on Sunday to send 3.300 troops to help Mali’s government retake the region from Islamic extremists, BBC online reports Tuesday.
The plans will now go before the UN Security Council for approval before the end of the year. Islamist groups and Tuareg rebels took control of the north earlier this year.
The UN has warned that the Islamist militias are imposing a harsh version of Islamic law on the areas they control and that forced marriage, forced prostitution, and rape are becoming widespread.
The Ecowas plan covers a six-month period, with a preparatory phase for training and the establishment of bases in Mali’s south, followed by combat operations in the north. The soldiers would be provided mainly by Nigeria, Niger and Burkina Faso.
The European Union is to discuss sending hundreds of instructors to train the Malian army.
President Amadou Toumani Toure was overthrown in March by a junta of disaffected soldiers who claimed his government had not dealt effectively with a Tuareg rebellion that had started in January.
Islamist groups – who have since fallen out with their Tuareg allies – took advantage of the ensuing chaos and seized all the region’s major towns, including the historic city of Timbuktu.
