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Expansion to strengthen numbers as France reduces its counter-terrorism mission in the region to 5,000.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mali said Chad wanted to deploy 1,000 more UN peacekeepers to Mali to strengthen troops fighting armed groups in the former French colony.
“The deployment is part of a two-pronged framework, with the Chadian government calling for the strengthening of its contingent in northern Mali after the reconfiguration of the Barkhane force,” the ministry said on Saturday.
Chadian troops make up nearly 1,400 of the UN’s 13,000-strong peacekeepers in northern and central Mali, where an international coalition has stepped up despite a nine-year effort by an international coalition.
The forthcoming implementation will strengthen these Chadian troops and others like France back scales his 5,000th counter-terrorism mission in the region is known as Barkhane.
Earlier this week, French troops withdrew from the city of Timbuktu, where in 2013 former French President Francois Hollande declared the start of a French military offensive in Mali.
In June this year, French President Emmanuel Macron announced a major troop drop after a military checkpoint in Mali in August 2020, with President-elect Ibrahim Boubacar Keita elected.
France has already closed three bases this year in northern Mali. By next year, it will have about 3,000 troops in the Sahel, down from 5,100 at the time of the deployment.
Chadian government spokesman Azem Bermendoa told Reuters on Saturday that additional troops would soon be sent to Mali, but declined to specify the size or extent of the contingent.
“After the withdrawal of French troops, we felt it was urgent to strengthen the operational and tactical capabilities of our contingent while the Malian army and the (UN) Blue Helmet were waiting to reorganize their deployments,” Bermendo said.
Chad deployed about 1,000 troops to the three border regions of Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali in February to bolster national armies after France publicly thought of reducing its regional presence.
The United Nations Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali, known as MINUSMA, began its deployment in the troubled Sahel in 2013.
It has 16,500 employees, including 10,700 soldiers, according to its website.
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