Malians who thrived with arrival of UN peacekeeping mission fear economic fallout from its departure

By ZANE IRWIN and BABA AHMED
Associated Press

BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — The pending pullout of U.N. peacekeepers from Mali is creating worries about what the withdrawal will mean for thousands of citizens who built livelihoods at and around the mission’s bases. In June, the West African nation’s military junta ordered the U.N. mission in Mali to leave, saying it had failed after a decade to stem a jihadi insurgency linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group. A withdrawal plan draft obtained by The Associated Press suggests bases will be packed up, region by region, until the mission’s headquarters closes in December. Restaurant owners, shopkeepers, builders and maintenance workers are some of the Malians who fear a reliable income will be gone when the peacekeepers are.