Rebels Take Over Mali Camp Immediately After UN Evacuates

Separatist rebels in northern Mali on Tuesday claimed to have taken over a camp just evacuated by the UN in the strategic town of Kidal, a significant development in an ongoing battle for territory

Bamako, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Oct, 2023) Separatist rebels in northern Mali on Tuesday claimed to have taken over a camp just evacuated by the UN in the strategic town of Kidal, a significant development in an ongoing battle for territory.

They occupied the camp immediately after it was vacated by the peacekeeping mission MINUSMA, a local official confirmed to AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Permanent Strategic Framework (CSP) -- a Tuareg-dominated alliance of armed groups that recently relaunched a rebellion against the state -- said in a statement Tuesday that it was "now taking control of the areas abandoned by MINUSMA in Kidal".

A convoy of peacekeepers made up of more than a hundred vehicles had earlier left the camp in a column of more than a hundred vehicles, heading for Gao, another key town in the north about 330 kilometres (200 miles) away, MINUSMA officials told AFP.

It was the third and last camp to be evacuated by the mission in the Kidal region of Mali's volatile north, which has been wracked by jihadist and separatist violence. The other two were at Tessalit and Aguelhok.