Mali: Russia’s Lavrov holds talks with junta leaders as UN mission’s HR chief expelled

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in Mali Tuesday (7 February) for talks with its junta leaders who only two days earlier ordered the rights chief with the UN peacekeeping mission in the country to leave for expressing views against Russia’s Wagner Group in Mali.
Lavrov’s visit of fewer than 24 hours will be his third trip to Africa since July 2022, part of a bid to expand Russia’s presence on the continent amid broad international isolation after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine last year. Since taking control of Mali in two coups since August 2020, the military junta led by Colonel Assimi Goita has sought Russian help in battling an Islamist insurgency after evicting the forces of former colonial ruler France. Several Malian officials have travelled to Moscow, but the visit by Lavrov is “the first of its kind” aimed at cementing “a new dynamic” for security and economic cooperation between the two countries, according to Mali’s foreign ministry.
Meanwhile, on Sunday (5 February), Mali’s military government declared Guillaume Ngefa-Atondoko Andali, human rights chief for the United Nations’ MINUSMA peacekeeping mission, persona non grata, or unwelcome, and ordered him to leave the country within 48 hours. According to the junta’s statement, this measure follows Andali’s destabilizing and subversive actions in flagrant violation of the principles and obligations that must be observed by United Nations officials. The statement criticized Andali of being biased in his selection of witnesses testifying at the UN Security Council, namely Malian activists Aminata Cheick Dicko who at a 27 January meeting accused Mali’s government of working with “Russian military partners” who committed rights abuses.