The President of the Republic, Head of State, HE Mohamed Bazoum, received Tuesday at the end of the morning August 2, 2022, the new Commander of the Barkhane Force, General Bruno Baratz.

General Baratz, who took command of Operation Barkhane a week ago, came “to thank the President of the Republic for the support provided by the State of Niger to France within the framework of the rearticulation of Barkhane’s device”, he said when he left the hearing.

“We are leaving Mali, as you know, and we need to bring out a lot of material that we have collected during eight years of operation in this country. And the only solution to do so was to go through Niger and we wanted to officially thank the President of the Republic for his support in this rearticulation,” he said.

“That’s a lot of convoys, it requires a lot of road traffic. There are currently 6,000 containers to leave Mali and this can only be done by road”, indicated General Baratz.

“We know all the complications and all the troubles that can cause these different convoys, which are sometimes more than ten km long. It is indeed painful for everyone. We really recognize the effort made by the people of Niger for the benefit of the French to enable us to get out of Mali cleanly and correctly,” he said.

Source: Presidency of the Republic of Niger