Mali Orders Swedish Ambassador To Leave Within 72 Hours

Sweden’s ambassador to Mali has been summoned and ordered to leave the country within 72 hours because of a “hostile” statement by a Swedish minister, Mali’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.

Mali’s move yesterday came days after Sweden’s minister for international development cooperation and trade, Johan Forssell, said the government had decided to phase out aid to Mali.

“You cannot support Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine and at the same time receive several hundred million crowns each year in development aid,” Forssell said on Wednesday, commenting on a post on X which said Mali was cutting ties with Ukraine.

The diplomatic spat underscores the broader geopolitical shift unfolding in the Sahel region as three military-led states – Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger – pivot away from traditional Western allies towards Russia.

In June, due to the deteriorating security situation in Mali, Sweden announced the closure of its embassy in Bamako by the end of 2024 and said Stockholm would continue supporting the region from Dakar, Senegal.

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Mali has been plagued by unrest driven by armed groups, making parts of the country ungovernable. The West African nation’s military seized power in a 2020 coup and has made it a priority to re-gain control over the entire country from separatists and hardline groups linked to al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS).

While Sweden had deployed soldiers to the region in 2022 as part of a United Nations peacekeeping mission, Stockholm said it would pull its 220 soldiers out of the mission in Mali.

Other European nations, including France, completed their withdrawals of troops from Mali in 2022.

Since then, Mali has moved closer to Russia, and the Wagner mercenary group has been operating in the country since late 2021, replacing French troops and international peacekeepers.