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High Level meeting on Mali and Sahel: statement of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Didier Reynders (New York, 26 September 2018).

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Didier Reynders salutes the globally peaceful conduct of the presidential election in Mali, despite a difficult security context in some regions of the country.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Didier Reynders and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Development Cooperation Alexander De Croo announce the opening of 4 new Belgian embassies in Africa. The existing diplomatic bureaus in Cotonou (Benin), Conakry (Guinea), Bamako (Mali) and Niamey (Niger) will be upgraded to the rang of embassy as of today. In doing so, our country is demonstrating the importance it attaches to its relations with these countries, as well as to the situation in the region.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Development Cooperation Alexander De Croo visits today, together with Prime Minister Charles Michel, a revalidation center in Bamako (Mali). This visit gives them a first-hand view on how the innovative humanitarian approach of our country works in the field. Handicap International presents in Bamako the development of 3D-printed limbs. The ICRC presents its plan to build a new physical revalidation center in Mali with the very first Humanitarian Impact Bond developed in partnership with Belgium.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Didier Reynders strongly condemns the new attack on the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), on 3 October in the Kidal region. Once again the Mission has to deplore casualties. A Chadian soldier was killed, eight of his colleagues were injured.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Didier Reynders joins UNESCO and the Malian government in welcoming the decision taken on 27 September 2016 by the International Criminal Court. In its decision, the court considers A. Al Faqi Al Mahdi, former jihadist member of Ansar Dine, guilty of war crimes consisting of destructing religious and historic buildings in the city of Timbuktu. These monuments were declared World Heritage Sites.