Cape Town - Ivory Coast officials have called on Mali to immediately release 49 of its soldiers who were arrested Sunday at the international airport in Bamako, refuting accusations they were mercenaries, local media said on Tuesday.
None of the Ivorian soldiers detained were carrying weapons of war, said a statement from the Ivorian president’s office, citing an AFP report.
Mali on Monday had said the troops from the Ivory Coast were armed and “mercenaries”, having detained them on arrival.
According to Today Nigeria, the Ivorian authorities insisted the soldiers had arrived to join MINUSMA, the UN peacekeeping force in Mali.
“These are not UN peacekeeping troops, so they’re not part of MINUSMA formally,” Farhan Haq, a spokesman for the UN Secretary General, said Tuesday.
But they were part of the national support elements deployed by the contributing countries to back up their contingents, he added.
“That’s a common practice in peacekeeping missions,” he said.
According to Reuters, the incident may worsen tensions between Mali's military rulers and other West African nations amid efforts to quell an Islamist insurgency and restore democratic rule.
Furthermore, in parts of northern Ivory Coast, local militiamen drive along the countryside's dusty roads, where they help the state keep the locals safe, an April investigative report by Voice of America revealed.
Unlike the nation's prosperous south, development, security and rule of law have struggled to reach the north.
It is believe that armed groups linked to Islamic State and al-Qaida, have already wreaked havoc less than 100 kilometres away, over the country's northern border in Burkina Faso and Mali.
IOL