Mali risky, but things safer in the air than on roads

Canadian helicopter crews and support personnel are headed to Mali, and while there are dangers associated with any operation they have a much better chance of avoiding casualties than do the United Nations soldiers from Africa who are being killed on the ground, one defence analyst who has studied the mission says.

Canada announced Monday it would send support personnel, two RCAF Chinook helicopters from the military base at Petawawa, Ont., and four armed Griffon helicopters to act as escorts for those larger aircraft to Mali, a West African country that since 2013 has struggled with insurgents and armed Islamic extremists.

While the mission has so far been the UN’s bloodiest, “most (combat) fatalities are for African troops in vehicles hit by IEDs” — improvised explosive devices such as roadside bombs, said Walter Dorn, a professor at the Royal Military College who just returned from Africa, where he was conducting research for the UN.

Well equipped western forces have a much better chance of survival, Dorn said.

The bulk of the 1 1 , 400 - member f orce is made up of UN troops from African and Asian nations such as Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger, Senegal and Togo.

“The lack of armoured personnel carriers, including mine-protected vehicles, remain( s) a major obstacle to the mission’s operations,” a UN report, published Dec. 26, warned.

Last month, four UN soldiers in Mali were killed and four others wounded when their vehicle hit an IED. The day before, six Malian soldiers were killed in a similar blast. In November 2017, a UN convoy was ambushed, with four soldiers killed and 16 wounded. In September, three UN soldiers were killed and five injured after their vehicle hit an IED.

Canadian government sources say Canadian military personnel are not expected to conduct extensive travel on the country’s dangerous roadways and most will either operate aircraft or support those helicopters from an airbase.

Insurgents have not shot down any UN helicopters attached to the mission, Dorn said, but there have been four deaths as a result of helicopter crashes because of technical issues.

In March 2015, a Dutch Apache attack helicopter crashed in northern Mali, killing its two crew members. In July 2017, a German military Tiger helicopter crashed in the north of the country, killing two on board. Issues with the helicopter’s autopilot were blamed for the incident.

Of the 164 military personnel deaths to date on the UN’s Mali mission, 71 resulted from accidents or from illnesses, according to the Department of National Defence.

In July 2016, two Dutch soldiers assigned to the UN mission in Mali died during a training exercise when a faulty mortar round exploded prematurely. A Dutch investigation determined stocks of old mortar rounds were used. The older munitions were bought with the Pentagon’s help in a rush to supply the Dutch mission, but proper safety procedures were not followed. In October 2017, Dutch defence minister Jeanine Hennis took responsibility for the incident and resigned.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said Canadian Forces personnel will be given the t raining and equipment needed for the operation. Asked Monday about the potential for Canadian casualties, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said the government was aware of the “difficulties of the situation in Mali.”

“We have been very thoughtful, very prudent in our decision to undertake that mission and we have taken the time necessary to be careful, and we intend to take the time to be thoughtful and prudent in the actual planning of the deployment,” she said.