Mali: A TSF team on the way to Timbuktu, northern Mali

A TSF team deployed this morning to Timbuktu, from its international headquarters.
The emergency team is carrying 14 mobile satellite lines and all the equipment necessary to create 4 emergency telecom centres. This equipment will reinforce the capacities of humanitarian workers in the region of Timbuktu enabling them to share vital information to manage the very critical humanitarian situation in this area.
The communication is very disturbed in northern Mali, where land lines and mobile network have been cut off in several towns, and the activities of the NGOs in this region are very limited because of the degradation in safety conditions.
Since April, TSF has been reinforcing the coordination among the humanitarian actors working with Malian refugees in Niger and Burkina Faso thanks to four satellite telecom centres in the biggest refugee camps on the Mali borders. UNHCR estimates at 225 000 the number of displaced people inside Mali and at 144 400 the number of refugees in neighbouring countries.