Thousands more Malians have become refugees since France began military operations against Islamic rebels in the north of the country – fleeing to neighbouring countries already struggling to provide earlier waves of refugees with food and water, aid agencies say.
More than 4,200 Malian refugees have arrived in Mauritania since 11 January. After being registered, they are being transported further inland to the Mbera refugee camp, which is already hosting 55,221 people from earlier displacements.
In Niger, there are now 1,300 new refugees, Mr. Edwards said, adding that during the same period, Burkina Faso received 1,829 new refugees – mainly ethnic Tuaregs and Songhai from the regions of Gossi, Timbuktu, Gao and Bambara Maoude.
Yet what they face are dire conditions in refugee camps located in insecure border areas, aid agency Oxfam said in a report highlighting the shortcomings of the humanitarian response to the growing refugee crisis.
“In Niger’s refugee camps, up to 21 per cent of the children are malnourished, 6 percentage points above the World Health Organization’s threshold for ‘emergency’ levels,” Oxfam said, adding that malnutrition rates were also “alarmingly high” among child refugees in Mauritania.
Most communities are still recovering from last year’s food crisis, and in some areas Malian refugees outnumber the host population, creating resentment among local people.
Plan International said aid agencies were unable to reach tens of thousands of displaced Malians and those trapped in areas where the fighting was fiercest.
The conflict is also preventing farmers from sowing their crops, adding to fears that up to 2 million people will face food shortages this year, the charity said.
“Farmers usually start preparing their fields in February, however, in the current climate it means that many of them are not able to work and this will have a big impact on food production,” Plan’s Mali country director, William Michelet, said in a statement.
France plans eventually to hand over the military operation to a U.N.-backed African mission, but the deployment of such a force has been hampered by a lack of supplies, funds and training.
Fighting between Malian Government forces and Tuareg rebels broke out in northern Mali last January, following which radical Islamists seized control of the area. The renewed clashes in the country’s north, as well as the proliferation of armed groups in the region, drought and political instability in the wake of a military coup d’état in March have uprooted hundreds of thousands of civilians over the course of the past year.
Including those displaced this month, some 147,000 Malians have found refuge in neighbouring countries since the crisis in Mali started in January last year, according to UNHCR. Inside the country, 229,000 people have been displaced – mainly from Kidal, Timbuktu, and Gao.