Rapidly spreading violence in Mali is threatening the State’s very survival, the UN independent expert on the human rights situation in the country said on Friday.
The UN Security Council met behind closed doors on Wednesday to discuss the derailing of Mali’s transitional government following the apparent forced departure of both the President and Prime Minister on Tuesday, by the leader of last August’s military coup.
Some 20 UN peacekeepers serving with the UN Stabilization Mission in Mali, MINUSMA, were injured on Wednesday, after their temporary base came under attack in the restive central region of the country.
Against the backdrop of a rapidly deteriorating security situation in Mali and the wider Sahel region, the UN peacekeeping chief concluded a visit to the restive northwest African nation on Thursday.
The UN Secretary-General António Guterres has strongly condemned another fatal attack carried out against a peacekeeping convoy that left a ‘blue helmet’ from Egypt dead, and another seriously injured on Friday.
Four United Nations peacekeepers in Mali were killed and five others wounded in an attack by unidentified armed elements on Wednesday, the UN mission in the country has said.
The current political transition period in Mali offers an opportunity to “break out of the vicious circle of political crises followed by coups d'état”, the UN envoy in the country told the Security Council on Wednesday.
Afghanistan’s justice system is continuing to fail female victims of violence and sex crimes, despite a 2009 law that was hailed as a significant step forward in legal efforts to protect them, according to a UN report published jointly on Monday by the UN human rights office (OHCHR) and the UN Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).
An independent UN human rights expert has called on Mali’s coup leaders to release former government officials, who have been detained for more than a month.
The UN on Thursday called for the “constitutional and democratic order” to be restored as soon as possible across Mali, following the military coup, and reiterated a call to respect the rule of law, and refrain from violence.
