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Notes from the Field
Friday March 15, 2013
Posted by: Daniel Fava at 10:48AM EST on March 15, 2013
Claudine Mensah Awute, Country Director with CARE Mali, describes the humanitarian crisis in the West African nation.
About a year ago, the world started to watch with alarm the growing number of people suffering from a severe food crisis engulfing the Sahel region, which, at its peak, affected more than 18 million people. To make things worse, Mali, once one of the most stable and peaceful countries of the region, saw an escalation of violence as fighting erupted in the north of the country. Thousands of families spilled into neighboring countries, taking refuge in camps hastily patched together on the border of Niger or Mauritania, whilst many others sought relief and shelter with friends and families in the south of the country. In recent weeks, Mali has been grabbing headlines as government, French, ECOWAS and Chadian troops continue their fight against armed groups in the north of the country. Every day, there has been news of the troops reaching one town after another. But what has been grabbing fewer or no headlines at all is the number of people who have been forced to flee their homes amidst the fighting–wives torn apart from their husbands, children from their parents, families from their communities. They have been forced to flee with little more than the clothes on their backs. And the numbers keep growing. During three weeks in January alone there have been nearly 18,000 refugees and 12,000 displaced people in Mali. These numbers can be overwhelming, but behind them, there are people – in flesh and bone, each with a story of their own. Such as Rokia, a mother of four, who told CARE that she had fled by herself with her four children. Months before, her husband had to flee their village in the north after being attacked by armed groups. She is constantly worried about him and distressed as she doesn |