Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Paul Jeffrey
Boubanar Traore wants desperately to go back to his home in northern Mali but doesn’t know how he would survive there. So he sits in a camp for displaced families in the south of the country, waiting and hoping that things will soon change.
A mechanic, his tools got left behind when he and his family fled in the middle of the night from the village of Hombori in 2012 after Islamist rebels killed the town’s chief. The Islamists seized most of Mali’s north before being driven out by French troops earlier this year.
Traore recently heard from friends in Hombori that the roof of his family house collapsed during heavy rains. Today he lives in a tent provided by the Swiss Red Cross in a camp on the outskirts of Mopti. ACT Alliance has helped Traore and the other 70 families in the camp with food, hygiene kits and cash, as well as helping them push for better support.
He is not alone in wondering when and how he can go home. According to the United Nations, Mali had 353,460 internally displaced people by June 20. Almost all stay with relatives or friends, often crowding into already cramped homes.
Such hospitality is an essential part of Malian culture. Moha Ag Oyahitt and his family fled Timbuktu last year to discover ample generosity in the nation’s capital. “Since we arrived in Bamako, we’ve lacked nothing. There hasn’t been one day that any of the displaced people have been hungry or sick and not received help. That help comes from all the people here no matter if they are Muslim or Christian. Everyone comes to help, bringing food, clothes and beds. This hospitality broke our hearts and makes us happy,” says Oyahitt, a Baptist pastor.“Even people who didn’t have anything to share would come to show how happy they were to see us. All the Muslim organisations came to show their hospitality, bringing things to help us,” he said.
Such spontaneous gestures aren’t always appreciated by aid professionals, who say organised camps are more efficient models of aid delivery.
“We met with the UN to ask why they didn’t target people living with host families. But they’re biased against those who are hosted by their relatives. They want to see big refugee camps,” says Yacouba Kone, Mali manager for Christian Aid, an ACT member.
“When someone from the north stays with someone in the south, that deeply depletes the household’s resources. Ignoring that is a big mistake. We need to make sure the livelihood of host families is also taken into account. We don’t go to a community and ask who is a refugee, and only give them some food. We target both the displaced and the hosts who welcome them, because the hosts become vulnerable when their relatives come to town,” Kone says.
According to Bony Mpaka, Mopti coordinator of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Malian government also discourages large camps believing they present a negative image of the country. “But I know one family that hosted 27 displaced people in their home. We might as well call that a camp,” he said.
Mpaka is worried many displaced families may go home sooner than they should because they feel they’ve placed an intolerable burden on their hosts.
Northern homecoming tainted
Seasonal rains will soon swell the Niger River, making it navigable to northern cities. Many displaced people want to get home in time to enroll their children for the new school year. But schools have yet to reopen everywhere. In Timbuktu, most government offices and banks remain closed, and the economy is depressed.
While Tuareg rebels reached a deal with the interim national government on June 18 which promises to help ease tensions, the political crisis in the north is far from over. The French military campaign against the Islamists continues. In recent weeks, according to UN monitors, families fleeing south number roughly the same as those returning to Timbuktu and other liberated northern areas.
Part of France’s role is to be assumed by a contingent of more than 12,000 UN-sponsored African troops and police officers but many people, including UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, wonder if they will keep terrorists at bay as well the French troops did.
And while national elections have been scheduled for July 28 it remains to be seen whether the country can pull off the vote on such short notice. Much of the international community seems to think a bad election is better than no election. Many of the displaced people agree. “We’re going to vote here, even though we’re displaced, because it will help Mali to have a new president. The current president has no real power. A new one will have legitimacy,” said Traore.
Yet many other voices are pleading for elections to be deferred. The International Crisis Group says that pressing ahead with July 28 would risk an election so “technically deficient” and with such low turnout that it would fail to bestow legitimacy on the new president and could feed a new cycle of instability.
According to Mpaka, the sum of these developments means that the “humanitarian space” for the UN and NGOs is increasing. “But the needs are also increasing. New attacks in Niger are making some refugees think that Mali might be safer. And when the displaced do return home in large numbers, supporting them is going to be much more complicated and expensive for us than supporting them while displaced, because we must support the entire community as it moves from the emergency phase into long-term development,” Mpaka said.
Long-term issues add to political concerns
Political crisis comes on the heels of several years of food shortages in the Sahel, which exacerbated problems for many communities hit by violence. Plentiful rains last year produced better harvests, yet the still depressed economy left most people with little purchasing power.
“Returning refugees and displaced persons can access food. It’s in the market. But they don’t have money to buy what’s in the market. So we’ve had to combine our response to the conflict with our intervention in response to food insecurity in the Sahel. That means helping people better manage their assets, such as food and cows, but also providing cash through direct transfer programmes and cash for work opportunities,” said Philippe Bassinga, Christian Aid’s Ouagadougou-based manager for the Sahel crisis.
Yet another complication for humanitarian workers in Mali is the perception that all is now well. “Many in the international community think the crisis in Mali ended when the French military intervened. With all the attention being paid to Syria and other crises, it’s hard to get people to focus on Mali. Or if they do, they’re giving more money to the UN military mission and neglecting the humanitarian response,” Mpaka said. As of June 20, the UN’s $US410m appeal for humanitarian assistance in Mali had only a third of funding.
ACT Alliance has announced a $US400,000 appeal to provide Malian refugees in Mbera Camp in Mauritania and the host communities with shelter, psychosocial support, nutrition, and help to farmers and pastoralists.
Mpaka said the ecumenical network is a welcome partner in the response to the situation in Mali today. “We’re happy to have ACT Alliance here. We know them from other countries. They bring a balanced view in that they respond to emergencies but with a perspective on long-term development. That’s not always the case with NGOs,” Mpaka said.
The ACT Alliance appeal will ensure members are ready to help displaced people and refugees if and when they return home in massive numbers. Programmes are already underway to help farmers get on their feet and get seeds in the ground, to help schools with educational material and nutritious food for students, and to help women and girls who were victims of gender-based violence to recover their dignity.
In a region torn by ethnic tensions for centuries, ACT Alliance-sponsored programmes will borrow on successful land dispute models to ease both racial tensions as well as newer conflicts between returnees and those who endured the long months of the jihadists’ version of sharia law. Violent settling of accounts with those seen as collaborators of the rebels have added to a general sense of instability and insecurity, the lessening of which will be needed before large numbers of people are willing to return north.
