French doctors suspend work in NE Mali over insecurity

French charity Medecins du Monde said Friday it was suspending medical aid to thousands of patients in two remote northeastern areas of Mali over deteriorating security.

The activities of jihadist, criminal or other armed groups have “always affected the local population, but in recent months they have also started more directly impacting humanitarians”, Giuseppe Raffa, the group’s Mali coordinator, told AFP by telephone.

Last year two robberies targeted one of its outposts and a mobile clinic in the Menaka region, and earlier this month a local partner was abducted in the nearby Goa region although later released, he said.

He said the charity believed criminals were to blame, and they were likely taking advantage of a “power vacuum” as foreign and local forces who have been fighting jihadists “re-organised” themselves in the area.

After repeated demands from Mali’s military government, Denmark said Thursday it would withdraw its newly deployed contingent of some 100 troops.

Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on Friday said France and its European partners “cannot stay with things the way they are” in the Sahel country ruled since 2020 by a junta.

Mali has been struggling to contain an Islamist insurgency that emerged in 2012, before spreading to neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.