Five soldiers died between December 28 and January 2 in Mali after the explosion of an improvised device. A heavy toll that hits the French strategy of disengagement in the Sahel.
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These are deaths that could not occur at most bad time in the worst place for Paris. The announcement, Saturday, January 2, of the death of two new soldiers, in the vicinity of Ménaka, in Mali, after the explosion of an improvised explosive device (IED), just five days after the death of three other soldiers in Similar circumstances, and this, in areas where the French army has been seeking in recent weeks to display its operational “successes” or to bring in European reinforcements, strikes a back-to-school agenda for 2021 which was intended to be much more optimistic. /
According to the Ministry of the Armed Forces, it was during an intelligence mission that Sergeant Yvonne Huynh, 33, mother of a young child, as well as Brigadier Loïc Risser, 24, from of the 2 e regiment of hussars of Haguenau (Bas-Rhin), lost their lives. A third soldier was injured in the explosion.
Beyond their deaths, however, three thresholds are crossed simultaneously, while the popular tribute and funeral honors for the three soldiers who died on December 28 have not yet been returned and were to take place this Monday, January 4, at the end of the afternoon.
The first threshold crossed is that of 50 “dead for France” – including about twenty by IED – since France’s commitment to the Sahel in 2013, under the banner of operation “Serval”, then that of “Barkhane” in 2014. It is also the heaviest record in a few days for the French army, after the death of thirteen soldiers in a collision between two helicopters, at the end of 2019.
The second threshold, more symbolic, but sensitive for the armies, which show a concern for feminization of the workforce, is the one embodied by Sergeant Yvonne Huynh: she is the first female soldier to die, since 2013, in these operations external.
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The third is on the political calendar: next January 13, one year after the Pau summit with the G5 Sahel countries, was to be the opportunity to present an assessment if not positive, at least encouraging of the commitment of 600 additional French soldiers (bringing the total strength to 5,100) decided then. This deadline was envisaged, in recent weeks, to announce a possible withdrawal of French troops from the Sahel, while many specialists consider that this theater has become less of a priority in the context of the current geopolitical and security upheavals.
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