Nigeria will send 600 soldiers to northern Mali: deputy defense minister

Nigeria will send hundreds of soldiers to Mali as part of a plan adopted by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to help the Malian government battle rebels controlling the northern part of the West African country.

“Nigeria is expected to send about 600 troops out of the 3,300 pledged by the ECOWAS,” Nigerian Deputy Defense Minister Erelu Olusola Obada said on Wednesday, AFP reported.

“The issue of the Sahel is not an issue localized within West Africa and Africa alone,” she said, referring to the Sahel region, which covers parts of several African countries, including the middle part of Mali.

On October 13, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution that gave the African Union and ECOWAS 45 days to present the details of a plan for a military intervention in Mali.

On November 11, ECOWAS agreed to send 3,300 troops, mostly from Nigeria, Niger, and Burkina Faso, to help the Malian government regain control of the north.

Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure was toppled in a military coup on March 22. The coup leaders said they mounted the coup in response to the government’s inability to contain the two-month-old Tuareg rebellion in the north of the country.

However, in the wake of the coup d’état, the Tuareg rebels took control of the entire northern desert region, but the Ansar Dine extremists later pushed them aside and wrested control of all the northern desert region, which is larger than France or Texas.