The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Friday to immediately end its peacekeeping operation in Mali as demanded by the country’s military junta, which has brought in mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group to help fight an Islamic insurgency.
Mali, a landlocked country in West Africa, has grappled with the insurgency for over a decade. It has seen its relations with the international community become strained in part because the ruling junta brought in the Wagner mercenaries who also have been engaged in Moscow’s war in Ukraine and were part of a short-lived mutiny against Russia’s military last week.
