Baerbock will travel to Mali on Tuesday where she will meet the leader of the junta, Assimi Goita, and Foreign Minister Aboudlaye Diop, the spokesman said.

She will then continue to Niger for talks with President Mohamed Bazoum and Foreign Minister Ibrahim Yacoubou.

Baerbock's aim is to "get a precise picture of the political and security situation on the ground" as Germany weighs its ongoing participation in military missions in Mali, he said.

Germany has around 1,100 soldiers deployed as part of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali, known as MINUSMA.

The European state has also contributed some 300 troops to the EU military training mission (EUTM Mali) in the Sahel country.

But France announced in February that it was pulling thousands of troops out of Mali, plunging the future of Germany's military engagement into doubt.

Germany's parliament is due to decide whether to extend the country's participation in MINUSMA and EUTM Mali in May.

German Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht visited German troops stationed in Mali at the weekend, where she spoke of "atrocities" committed in the village of Moura.

Mali's military-dominated government says it "neutralised" 203 jihadists in Moura, but witnesses interviewed by media and Human Rights Watch (HRW) say soldiers actually killed scores of civilians.

Mali has been struggling to contain a brutal jihadist insurgency that first emerged in 2012, before spreading to neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.

Thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed and two million people forced to flee their homes by the Sahel-wide conflict, of which Mali remains the epicentre.

France announced its military pullout due to a dispute with Mali's military junta, which seized power in 2020 and has since defied international calls to swiftly restore civil rule.