Each country (well, actually an organisation in the country, usually a part of the government) gets its ISO-2 code (the two-letter code it is usually known by). So .ml has always belonged to the Mali government. For a time, they let a Dutch company run it, and the company allowed pretty much anyone to create .ml websites for free. At this time, the Lemmy software was created and its developers also started lemmy.ml as a test server. Anyway, the Dutch registrar’s contract has ended and the .ml domain will now return to the Mali government. So the existing .ml stuff always existed in a domain that belonged to Mali; it is just that they are only now being asked to leave.
Each country (well, actually an organisation in the country, usually a part of the government) gets its ISO-2 code (the two-letter code it is usually known by). So .ml has always belonged to the Mali government. For a time, they let a Dutch company run it, and the company allowed pretty much anyone to create .ml websites for free. At this time, the Lemmy software was created and its developers also started lemmy.ml as a test server. Anyway, the Dutch registrar’s contract has ended and the .ml domain will now return to the Mali government. So the existing .ml stuff always existed in a domain that belonged to Mali; it is just that they are only now being asked to leave.