{UAH} MALI WANTS DRONES

Mali: UN Wants Surveillance Drones for Mali

Wednesday, May 14, 2014 - 17:07

AAFonline

The United Nations wants to expand its use of unmanned aerial vehicles after it successfully deployed the aircraft for the first time in December to aid UN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The organisation has shelved plans to deploy surveillance drones as part of its peacekeeping mission in Ivory Coast due to improved security, but is now seeking a company to provide the unarmed aircraft for its peacekeeping mission in Mali.

It has called for companies to submit expressions of interest to provide surveillance drones for Mali, based in the northern towns of Timbuktu and Gao. The deadline is 14 May, according to the request by the United Nations.  The contract will be for a period of three years.

A UN peacekeeping force, known as MINUSMA, assumed authority on 1 July from a UN-backed African force in Mali.  Although the UN Security Council mandated a 12600-strong force, there are only some 7500 troops on the ground.

In Ivory Coast the United Nations is gradually reducing the size of its peacekeeping force. The world's top cocoa grower is emerging from a decade of political turmoil that ended in a brief post-election civil war in 2011 when former president Laurent Gbagbo rejected the victory of rival AlassaneOuattara.

The Ivory Coast had asked the United Nations to consider deploying drones along its border with Liberia to offset the planned reduction in peacekeepers. Western Ivory Coast had been the target of deadly raids blamed on supporters of Gbagbo.

Viele GruBe

Robukui

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