BAMAKO— Mali’s transition authorities said they were holding 49 Ivorian soldiers on suspicion of seeking to destabilise the country.

The soldiers were detained on Sunday, shortly after arriving at the Modibo Keita International Airport in Bamako, aboard a special flight.

While Ivorian authorities say the soldiers are part of the UN peacekeeping mission in the country – Minusma, the Malians insist there has been no evidence to support that claim. Rather, they say all evidence point to an ulterior motive.

Reports about the detention of the troops first emerged on social media. Many Malians view Cote d’Ivoire’s President Alassane Ouattara as the stooge of Western governments, especially France, which has been at loggerheads with the Malian junta since the overthrow of the late former President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in August 2020.

In a statement issued via state TV on Monday evening, Mali’s military-led transition government spokesman, Colonel Abdoulaye Maiga, described the soldiers as “mercenaries”, noting that they were in the country “illegally” and in possession of weapons and ammunition of war, without a mission order or authorisation.

“Thanks to the professionalism of the Malian Defence and Security Forces, it was established that the forty-nine (49) Ivorian soldiers were illegally on the national territory of Mali. As a result, they were immediately arrested and their weapons, ammunition, and equipment were seized,” the statement reads.

Reports have cited the Ivorian army insisting that the soldiers belonged to the regular army and that they were in Mali to secure Minusma sites. The Ivorians also denied that there was any problem with the prior arrangement for the troop’s arrival in Bamako.

Reports cited Ivorian army sources saying that the detained soldiers belonged to the 8th detachment of the National Support Element (NSE), which is an autonomous body of national troop-contributing countries deployed in support of their contingents, a practice commonly applied in peacekeeping missions.

Cote d’Ivoire has two separate contingents in Minusma based in Mopti in the centre of the country and Timbuktu in the north.

Another report said the detained troops are seconded to a private company, Sahel Aviation Service (SAS), a German-led airline operating entity that is a subcontractor of the UN mission.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK