>>5373084<span class="mu-i">Gao is being turned into a what?</span> Mason rubbed at his brow and thought about this matter. Mason sucked on his vape and breathed out, pacing as he thought about this matter. Gao was being converted from what it was now, to being a "Refugee Camp" and on top of that people above his paygrade had negotiated a "Cease Fire". This ceasing of firing was going to be more serious than the last one, for one thing... The UN Security Council had signed off on it, and the African Union was on board as well. The two battalions of underequipped Regulars in technicals were already putting on their blue and white armbands, along with painting their materials to indicate they were "Peacekeepers" from the "African Branch" of "Human Rights Now". About a million USD in value was being spent to convert the area over, and already the old wrecked plane was pushed off, the bodies were collected and sent to their homes, and new planes had taken turns unloading and flying off.
Refugees were already pulling in from Burkina Faso. A tiny number of Mason's forces were allowed anywhere near Gao, just enough to protect Mason from being shot by an assassin. The city was declared an "open and neutral city". Tuareg Berbers and jihadists were already trying to make the area their capitol, but it was a shared capital. Some NGOs and Mali state representatives were showing up as well.
The camp would take two seasons to be fully finished, but already the UN and African Union were stating so much approval, that Mason and his allies, the Burkina Faso junta, and "Human Rights Now, Africa" were getting considerable improvements in legitimacy. In the event that the Mali junta lost control of their capital, it was possible that one of the groups responsible for taking Gao and converting it to this refugee camp.... would end up with more legitimacy and international backing.
In about a season or two, new Peacekeepers would be rotated in. For now, all the factions that were not third parties, had to avoid Gao unless the Ceasefire was broken. The troops for Burkina Faso went home, the militias returned to their villages as well.
According to reports, there had been a few nights ago, while the first battle to retake Gao was happening..... That around 240 trucks were getting shot up and blown up in north Burkina Faso.
<span class="mu-i">170 trucks were shot up and burning, littered with what looked like 50 caliber HMG fire. Half of them were just at the top of a berm, a perfect ambush point, the other were stationed at a gold mine. Still more trucks, another 80 or so, were in missing their front halves and had a horrible, intense fire coming from their engines. These trucks were positioned behind the berm, perhaps as reinforcements or to ambush. The clue was that there was large piles of .50 caliber HMG casings for .50 caliber HMG cartridges, right next to each collection or destroyed pickups, technicals.
There was no sign of any of the powerful machineguns that fired the cartridges.</span>
