Mali’s Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop, Burkina Faso’s Foreign Minister Karamoko Jean Marie Traore, and Niger’s Foreign Minister Bakary Yaou Sangare in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, April 3, 2025.
Following an investigation, Mali “concluded with absolute certainty that the drone was destroyed following a premeditated hostile action by the Algerian regime.”
Mali and its allies Niger and Burkina Faso announced on Sunday the recall of their respective ambassadors to Algeria , which they accused of shooting down a Bamako army drone on Malian territory at the end of March.
On April 1, Algiers said it had shot down an armed reconnaissance drone that had entered its airspace. Following an investigation, Mali ”
concluded with absolute certainty that the drone was destroyed following a premeditated hostile action by the Algerian regime ,” the Malian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. ”
The College of Heads of State of the AES (Alliance of Sahel States) has decided to recall the ambassadors of the member states accredited to Algiers for consultations ,” the three countries announced in a joint statement. Algerian authorities did not immediately respond.
A “hostile, unfriendly and condescending action”
According to the Malian government, which has been ruled by the military since a double coup in 2020 and 2021, the drone wreckage was located 9.5 kilometers south of the border with Algeria. ” The distance between the point where the connection with the aircraft was broken and the location of the wreckage is 441 meters. These two points are all located on national territory ,” the statement said, adding that the aircraft ” fell vertically, which probably can only be explained by hostile action caused by surface-to-air or air-to-air missile fire .”
” Faced with the gravity of this unprecedented act of aggression ,” Mali ” condemns in the strongest terms this hostile, unfriendly and condescending action by the Algerian authorities ,” the document continues.
The Malian junta also announced several protest measures against Algiers, including the summoning of the Algerian ambassador to Bamako, the withdrawal with immediate effect of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CEMOC) – an alliance of several armed forces in the Sahel to fight terrorism – and a complaint to international bodies ” for acts of aggression .”
The Algiers Peace Agreement
This dispute is the latest between Mali and its large neighbor Algeria, whose relations have steadily deteriorated in recent years. The two countries had already recalled their respective ambassadors following a falling-out in December 2023. Mali accuses Algeria of maintaining ” closeness to terrorist groups ,” particularly in the border region, where the Malian army and its Russian allies suffered heavy losses in late July.
At the end of January 2024, the Malian junta announced the ” end, with immediate effect “, of the Algiers peace agreement , signed in 2015. This agreement has long been considered essential to stabilize the country, which has been facing a security crisis since 2012 fueled by violence from groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group (IS), and from community criminal gangs.
Since seizing power by force in 2020, the Malian military has, in addition to the Algiers peace agreement, broken the long-standing alliance with France and its European partners to turn towards Russia and have withdrawn MINUSMA, the United Nations stabilization mission in Mali.
The junta then formed the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) in 2023 with Niger and Burkina Faso, also ruled by military regimes that emerged from coups. In January, the three Sahelian countries left the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which they consider subservient to France.
