Becky Bakr
Despite French military and UN peacekeeping interventions that started over a year ago, northern regions of Mali remain highly unstable. Violence within communities, localised tensions, banditry and other armed violence still persists making it unsafe to return home for the many displaced.
Over 200,000 Malians continue to be displaced inside Mali, and their needs are not being met. Ami Maiga is one of them. The Guardian has made a video report of her story describing how she was forced to flee her hometown and her business two years ago when radical Islamists seized control of Timbuktu in northern Mali. Maiga travelled 900 km south to the capital Bamako where she lives today.
“They came and they started to destroy everything. They said the next time they caught me they would give me 100 lashes of the whip. I escaped by the backdoor”, she tells The Guardian.
Even though the Islamists withdrew in January 2013, Maiga has not been able to return to her former life and start up her business again. NRC´s Programme Manager in Mali, Tanya Walmsley describes Maiga´s difficult situation:
“To find the courage to be able to return, to be able to pick up life again and even to be able to restart her business, will be very difficult for Ami”, Walmsley explains to The Guardian.
Though thousands of refugees and internally displaced people have returned to the north, other Malians continue to flee violence. Many choose to move for a second time in search of economic opportunities.
“You are used to a certain way of life, and then you have a completely different way of life enforced upon you and you are humiliated for your way of living”, Walmsley explains.
The failure to adequately address the ongoing needs of displaced Malians is forcing many dicplaced to move constantly in search of safe shelter. In some cases displaced people feel that they have no choice but to return home prematurely, in spite of persistent insecurity, lack of services and, in many areas, the ongoing lack of state authority. Like Ami, thousands of Malians have nothing to return to.
