REPORTING. In Mali, French soldiers of Operation Barkhane progress in indifference

In the aisles of the covered market Ménaka in Mali, in the middle of football shirts, flip flops sandals and bawling radios, eyes barely rise to the French soldiers of Operation Barkhane. As if their armed silhouettes, helmets, ball gowns were invisible. It is rather in the indifference of the local populations that the patrols of Barkhane are carried out.

In the streets of the city, spaced from each other by a few meters and advancing in two columns, the soldiers keep cars and motorcycles away, constantly scrutinizing the facades and crossroads. “Even though the mission is repetitive and may seem trivial, it is not”, says one of them. “We are always very careful, especially when traveling in vehicles. The main threat remains IEDs.” These artisanal mines are indeed the most frequent danger in the Sahel.

The objective of the foot patrol is, according to this soldier, to “take elements of the mood, see if there are things that are abnormal, chat with people, see if they have had problems recently or if they have things to tell us.” The reception depends a lot on the villages crossed. In that of Gorum near Gao, contact with the population is very cold despite the almost 40 degrees at 9 am. The soldiers crisscross the streets and descend to the banks of the Niger River. There they no longer find indifference but a kind of contempt.

The population of the countries of the region actually blames Barkhane’s French soldiers for their ineffectiveness in the face of jihadist attacks. TO Ouagadougou, capital of Neighboring Burkina Faso, a demonstration will take place Saturday, November 27, despite the ban of the town hall, to protest against the inability of the power in place as French soldiers to maintain security in the country and its region.

In the neighboring village of Saidu, the chief talks for a few moments with the lieutenant who leads the detachment on patrol. Often when asked, “Do you speak French ?”, heads are shaking to say no. However, even if nothing happens, if no word is spoken, everything is noted, listed and archived.

It takes a memory of the patrols, insists Lieutenant-Colonel Kevin in his office in Gao, he who in four months, ordered 260 of these missions. “It is not at the first patrol that we will detect if something abnormal is happening”, he explains. “It’s at the end of the tenth, the fifteenth, the twentieth. When it’s the thirtieth time that we go to this village and we always see that stall that is open, when we know where the village chief, and we are going to say to ourselves: ‘There is something going on, which is not normal, not as usual’ or then: ‘The situation is normal, people are there and leading their usual activities. ”One needs a significant recurrence to fully understand this situation.”

Return to the banks of the Niger, in Thirisoro. Children play football, we hear laughter, the village seems more alive. The lieutenant walks up to a group of elders. “Who’s providing security here?”, he asks. “Hunger protects us, we have nothing to eat, nothing to take”, answers a villager.

Harvests have been poor this year. The drought first, then the thunderstorms killed the little that had sprouted. But despite the misery, there was an exchange with the inhabitants. For Barkhane’s soldiers, initiating a discussion is difficult because the villagers do not have spontaneous speech. There are therefore pitfalls to be avoided. “When we enter a village, we take off the sunglasses and the helmet”, describes Kevin, Gao’s lieutenant colonel. “It’s still better when you look someone in the eye. It will also depend on how you are going to carry the weaponry, if it is in the back or if it is in front.”

“I often ask my soldiers: ‘You take off the helmet, you take off the sunglasses and you take a soccer ball.’ It’s a weird order, but it works. “”

Kevin, lieutenant-colonel for Operation Barkhane in Gao

franceinfo

In Mali, each French patrol includes around thirty soldiers. It is only a tool, there are others: checkpoints, observation points, night infiltrations, all of this is part of what the military call the “zone control “.