MINUSMA was established on 25 April 2013 by United Nations Security Council Resolution 2100 to stabilise the country after the Tuareg rebellion of 2012,[2] and was terminated over a decade later on 30 June 2023.

[7] Following economic sanctions and a blockade by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on the country, a deal, brokered in Burkina Faso by President Blaise Compaoré under the auspices of ECOWAS, was signed that would see Amadou Sanogo cede power to Dioncounda Traoré to assume the presidency in an interim capacity until an election is held.

[8] On 1 July 2013, 6,000 of a future total of 12,600 UN peacekeeping troops officially took over responsibility for patrolling the country's north from France and the ECOWAS' International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA).

[11] On 16 June 2023, the Foreign Minister of Mali requested that the United Nations terminate MINUSMA due to what he called its "failure" to stabilize the situation there.

It also preceded Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop calling for the UNSC to send a rapid deployment force to the country claiming that there was an increase in drug traffickers and Islamist fighters.

[25] Responsibility was claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb who stated that it was a retaliatory attack for the recent visit to Chad by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the subsequent revival of Chad–Israel diplomatic relations.

[27] On 25 January 2019 three Sri Lankan peacekeepers were killed, while another three were injured, when their armoured vehicle came under an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attack, in the general area of Douentza in Mali.

Secretary-General António Guterres and UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric criticized the attacks, and said that they could account to war crimes as per the international law.

[31] On 30 March 2021, MINUSMA published a report that concluded a French air strike on 3 January 2021 on the remote village of Bounti in Sahel state, killed at least 22 people, 19 of whom were civilians.

[34] On 8 December 2021, seven MINUSMA peacekeepers were killed when their convoy hit an improvised explosive device in central Mali, in the Bandiagara area in the Mopti region when driving between the towns of Douentza and Sévaré.