German troops start withdrawal from Mali – commander

German troops have started to withdraw from Mali as Berlin aims to wind up by May next year a mission that has been hampered by disputes with the ruling military junta in Bamako and the arrival of Russian forces.
Berlin has deployed some 1,000 troops to Mali, most near the northern town of Gao where their main task is to gather reconnaissance for the U.N. peacekeeping mission MINUSMA.
The military has begun shipping the first components of what amounts to some 1,300 container loads of equipment, the German commander in Mali, Colonel Heiko Bohnsack, told the daily Tagesspiegel in an interview published on Wednesday.
In the first stages of the withdrawal, the material in place will slowly be thinned out while the troops will maintain all means to fulfil their mission, he added.
Also on Wednesday, the government in Berlin paved the way for a last one-year extension of the decade-old mission until May 2024, a decision that is still subject to approval by the lower house of parliament.