The 46 Ivorian soldiers detained in Mali for nearly six months, sentenced to 20 years in prison and pardoned by the head of the Malian junta Assimi Goïta, were expected in Abidjan on Saturday, we learned from Ivorian political and military sources.
“They are expected this afternoon,” a source close to the Ivorian presidency told AFP, confirmed by a military source. They did not specify the arrival time of the spoiled soldiers on Friday evening.
Before their return to Abidjan, the 46 soldiers will transit through Lome where Togolese President Faure Gnassingbé will officially hand them over to Ivorian Defense Minister Tiéné Birahima Ouattara, who will bring them back to Côte d’Ivoire, according to a Togolese diplomatic source.
President Gnassingbé, who “rejoiced” in a tweet at the pardon granted to the soldiers, played a decisive role as mediator between Bamako and Abidjan with a view to obtaining their release.
Arrested on July 10 in Bamako, these soldiers were suspected of being “mercenaries”: they were sentenced on December 30 to twenty years’ imprisonment by a Malian court, three women soldiers released in mid-September, being sentenced to death in absentia.
All were declared guilty of “attack and conspiracy against the government”, “undermining the external security of the State”, “possession, carrying and transport of weapons and munitions of war (…) with the aim of to disturb public order by intimidation or terror”,
On Friday evening, the Malian government announced that the head of the military junta, Assimi Goïta, had “granted his pardon with full remission of sentences to the 49 Ivorians convicted by Malian justice”.
Since July 10, Côte d’Ivoire has been demanding the release of its soldiers, categorically denying that they were “mercenaries”, but that they were on a mission for the UN, as part of logistical support operations. to the United Nations Mission in Mali (Minusma).
Both in Abidjan and Bamako, this pardon was well received by those interviewed by AFP.
“It’s a joy for all, everyone should be proud and continue to trust diplomacy”, declared in Abidjan Patrick Dali, Noufo Ouattara, auto electrician, believing that we must “forgive on both sides” because “the two countries have a really strong brotherly bond and the two populations are practically the same”.
In Bamako, Zafara Ongoïba, felt that “nothing beats peace”. “It’s a sigh of relief for the international community, for the sub-regional community and for all the Malian and Ivorian people,” he added.