German soldiers, brave men and women serving in the Bundeswehr, are making their way home from Mali. After a decade of involvement in the UN peacekeeping mission Minusma, they're bidding farewell to West Africa. Two A400M military transporters and an Airbus A330MRTT have taken off from Dakar, Senegal's capital, bound for Germany. The troops are expected to land at Wunstorf Air Base in Lower Saxony around 3:00 pm.
Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) will greet these returning heroes at Wunstorf. A ceremony, called a returnee roll call, is planned to honor their service, as announced by the 62nd Air Force Wing. Their departure marks the end of the Bundeswehr's second major deployment outside Europe, following the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
After more than a decade of commitment, Germany's Bundeswehr is finishing its UN mission in Mali. Boris Pistorius will welcome the 142 soldiers who made a stopover in Dakar during their homebound journey. The military government of Mali, which had demanded the withdrawal of all 12,000 UN peacekeepers in June and increased cooperation with Russia, may have played a role in this decision.
Interestingly, Mali is not the only country in the Sahel region experiencing this trend. Following military coups and deteriorating political relations, Western military forces, including those from France, the United States, and Germany, have been withdrawing from the region.
To add, it's not uncommon for Germany to extend its military presence in international missions. Germany continues its engagement in missions like South Sudan and Afghanistan, however, the sources do not provide any conclusive information about a withdrawal from Mali.
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(Note: Due to the limited input, the enrichment data has been minimally incorporated into the base article to retain flow and coherence.)
