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The most informed guesses provided to me by the military suggest that it will take until at least next March or April to get Canadian troops and gear into the field. If the mission is to Mali, one place the Canadians could be based at or near is Timbuktu, where French troops clashed with fighters from al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb in the spring of 2013. The average daytime temperature in April and May at the fabled crossroads for Saharan camel caravans will be above 40 C, and never drops below 30 C the rest of the year. It is only slightly cooler elsewhere in the country.

Mali is ranked 179th in the UN Human Development Index. That is eight places behind Afghanistan. The average lifespan in Mali is nearly 30 years less than it is in Canada. Half the population gets by on less than one dollar a day.

Meningitis is the biggest killer, followed by its frequent partner, malaria, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Cholera, hepatitis, rabies, tuberculosis, typhoid, yellow fever and the Zika virus are all present. Polio has again become a serious concern.

So even before the fluid security situation is considered, pestilence and hot weather may make Africa more of a challenge for the Canadians than Afghanistan, with its fairly predictable summer fighting seasons.

Before Canada’s mission to Kandahar in 2006, then-defence minister Bill Graham and Gen. Rick Hillier embarked on a cross-country tour to inform Canadians about how dangerous it would be. That process is underway again, with initial warnings from defence minister Harjit Sajjan and Canada’s new ambassador to the UN, Marc-André Blanchard, that what Canada is about to undertake in Africa will be peacemaking, not Pearson-style peacekeeping, and that the prospect of combat and casualties is very real.