If the Bundeswehr were to withdraw from Mali, the local forces there could face a fate similar to that in Afghanistan in 2021. In order to be able to prepare an evacuation, according to the operational command, there must first be a "political decision". But that is a long time coming.
Should the Bundeswehr withdraw from Mali, according to them, a possible evacuation of the local forces - similar to the case in Afghanistan - has not yet been settled. A possible evacuation requires "a political decision. And that has not yet been made," said a spokesman for the Bundeswehr's operational command to the editorial network Germany (RND). According to him, the Bundeswehr currently employs 59 local staff in the West African country.
Politically, the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Office and the Federal Ministry of the Interior would be responsible for emergency rescue, administratively the Federal Office for Personnel Management and the Federal Office for Infrastructure, Environmental Protection and Services, both of which are affiliated with the Bundeswehr.
The evacuation of local forces from Afghanistan was sometimes chaotic a year ago due to a lack of preparation and the surprise takeover of power by the Taliban and has not yet been completed. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces, Eva Högl, recently warned that in Mali "the lessons learned from the Afghanistan mission should be taken into account".
The Bundeswehr is involved in the UN mission Minusma in Mali. Because of new obstacles to the German troop exchange by the local military junta, Federal Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht from the SPD on Friday suspended the deployment of German soldiers in the crisis country until further notice.
