Malians laud decision to extend UN peace mission

The people of Mali have lauded UN Security Council’s decision to extend the UN’s Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Mali, also known by the acronym MINUSMA.

Periodic violence continues in nothern Mali, carried out by Islamist militants who have also staged a series of high profile assaults in Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast.

“I completely agree with this new decision. I trust MINUSMA will bring peace to this region, because they have backing from the rest of the world. There will surely be a change,“says one Ibrahim Maiga, a resident of Gao.

This new mandate will allow soldiers to figure out better ways to fight the insurgents, in the opinion of Kader Toure, a radio journalist in Gao: “We have complained about several attacks against the MINUSMA forces. If today everybody understood that they had a role to play in bringing peace, we would all move in the same direction as MINUSMA, and I think that would be a good thing, but we are still waiting to see what will become of this.”

And to carry out their mission, some people believe that MINUSMA must fully cooperate with the local population, and especially young people.

Mali is still struggling to implement a fragile peace deal aimed at ending a cycle of internal uprisings and allowing the government to combat growing islamists threats in Timbuktu, Menaka, Kidal and Gao.