Mali has asked U.N. peacekeepers to leave immediately, marking the abrupt end of a decade-long mission that has struggled to protect civilians and its own troops, sparking fears that the African country will descend into chaos as Islamist and separatist insurgencies power, Reuters reported.

The UN mission, known as MINUSMA, has already been hampered by restrictions on its air and ground operations since Mali’s ruling junta joined forces with Russia’s Wagner mercenary group in 2021, limiting its effectiveness against the Islamist insurgency that took root a decade ago and has since spread throughout West Africa.

Despite the restrictions, the 13,000-strong MINUSMA force has held on to northern cities, including Gao and Timbuktu, which are surrounded by Islamists.

Junta remains with 1,000 Wagner soldiers against Islamist militants and Tuareg separatists

UN troops patrol camps for displaced people, which are often attacked, and provide medical evacuations for Mali’s underarmed army.

It also helped quell Tuareg-led rebels in northern Mali, who ended their separatist insurgency with the 2015 Algiers accord.

It is unclear how quickly UN troops can leave after Mali’s surprise request on Friday.

But when they do, Mali’s leadership will be left alone with Wagner’s roughly 1,000 soldiers to fight Islamic State and al-Qaeda-linked militants who have killed thousands of civilians and soldiers and control large swaths of desert in the north and the center of the country.

“If he goes, there will be anarchy and civil war, especially against civilians and the weak,” said Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, a former Mauritanian foreign minister who was the UN’s top official in West Africa and now runs a regional think tank.

“If I stay, I will almost be discredited,” he added.

A spokesman for the Coordination of Movements in Azawad (CMA), a Tuareg-led rebel alliance, said any UN withdrawal was premature because the peace deal had not been fully implemented and threatened stability in the Sahel region.

The massacre was committed by “armed white men”, that is, Wagner’s troops

Relations between the UN and Mali’s junta, which consolidated power through two coups in 2020 and 2021, have been strained for years.

The junta wanted MINUSMA to become a more active fighting force to counter the Islamist threat, but the UN said that was not part of its mission.

Meanwhile, UN officials are pushing for greater freedom of movement to protect civilians and investigate rights abuses by militants, the military and, most recently, Wagner.

Relations reached a breaking point last month when UN investigators published a report blaming the army and “white gunmen” for the massacre of 500 people in the town of Moura in March 2022.

Mali, Russia and Wagner deny that they committed illegal acts in Moura or that they targeted civilians anywhere in Mali.

The UN has repeatedly stated that restrictions imposed by the junta prevented it from fulfilling its mission.

Mali often denied or delayed MINUSMA’s permission to travel to war zones, hampering its ability to respond to an attack on civilians or quickly investigate violations.

How Mali demanded the withdrawal of UN troops

Frustrated by these restrictions, Western and African diplomats called for changes this year. However, after a review of the mission in January, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last week rejected a proposal to increase the force to 3,600 troops, which had been under pressure from Mali’s African neighbors, as well as an alternative proposal that would have reduced the size of MINUSMA to a political mission in Bamako, Mali’s capital.

Instead, he proposed extending the force’s mandate with only a few changes, including closing some small bases in the north.

On June 14, the Malian government issued a statement rejecting all proposals.

Then on Friday, Mali’s Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop told a UN Security Council meeting that there was a “crisis of confidence between the Malian authorities and MINUSMA” and that the UN force should leave “immediately”.

The 15-member UN Security Council intended to extend MINUSMA’s mandate until the current mandate expires on June 30.

It is unclear at this point whether the Council, where Russia as one of the 5 permanent members has veto power, will now vote to renew or how long it will take to complete an orderly withdrawal of the mission if there is no extension.

On Friday, in response to Mali’s statement, MINUSMA head El-Gassim Wane told the media that peacekeepers can only operate with the consent of the host country: without this, the mission is “impossible”.

MINUSMA spokeswoman Fatumata Sinkun Kaba declined to comment on the logistics of a possible troop withdrawal and said the mission would adhere to Security Council mandates.

The UN’s deadliest mission

MINUSMA was launched in 2013 after separatist and al-Qaeda-linked rebels took over northern Mali. French troops forced the militants to retreat, but they returned.

More than 170 peacekeepers have died in the fighting, making MINUSMA the deadliest UN combat mission.

The violence has spread to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger, creating one of the world’s fastest-growing humanitarian crises.

Mali’s junta promised stability when it came to power; took an anti-French position and strengthened ties with Russia.

By the end of 2021, PVK “Wagner” appeared.

Mali imposed flight restrictions within weeks, as did UN troops in the Central African Republic, another location where Wagner’s group operates.

Bamako and the Kremlin say Russian troops, not Wagner’s mercenaries, are in Mali only to train the army and supply equipment.