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During a high-level United Nations conference on the Sahel, Mali and other members called for the UN Security Council (UNSC) to deploy an Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) force in Islamist-controlled northern Mali so as to regain territorial integrity. However, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned that such action could increase the risk of secondary displacement and further restrict humanitarian access. This takes place against a backdrop of daily, and increasingly atrocious, human rights violations condemned recently by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navanethem Pillay.
According to the Commission on Population Movements, which completed an IDP tracking exercise throughout the country, 118,795 people were displaced inside Mali as of 18 September, including 35,300 in the occupied northern regions of Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu. Earlier estimates citing 174,000 people as internally displaced were based on vulnerability assessments made in April when restricted humanitarian access in the north did not allow for comprehensive IDP profiling exercises. Most IDPs and host families are facing the effects of a deeply entrenched political crisis which prevents most from meeting their very basic needs, such as food.
For more information on the background of the conflict in Mali and the current situation of IDPs there, see IDMC’s new country overview.