Tens of thousands fleeing northern Mali

At least 78,000 people have fled the violence in northern Mali since the outbreak of the Tuareg conflict four weeks ago, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) in Göttingen stated on Saturday. "In the last five days alone, 59,000 Tuareg and members of other ethnic groups have left the conflict area," explained Ulrich Delius of the STP's Africa section. "In the face of this mass flight, it is imperative that the international community take concrete measures to help bring peace to the region." A call for immediate resistance, put forth by the French government, had no perceptible impact. 

Of the 78,000 refugees, some 40,000 are seeking asylum in Mali's neighboring countries. Approximately 15,000 sought safety in Niger, 12,000 arrived in Mauritania, 8,000 were taken in by Burkina Faso and 5,000 people fled to Algeria. The numbers of refugees seeking asylum in these nearby countries is increasing daily.

Within Mali, too, the calamitous refugee situation continues. At least 38,000 people are internally displaced as a result of the continuing battles between the Tuareg "National Movement for Liberation of Azawad" (MNLA) and the Malian army in northern Mali. Approximately 26,000 people have fled a single city, Menaka in the Gao region. In the Timbuktu region, local organizations estimate there are well over 10,000 people on the run.

"The mass flight of Tuareg and other inhabitants from this desolate region threatens to exacerbate the growing famine in the Sahel," Delius pointed out, "because the areas they are running to are already suffering food shortages." The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) warned this week that approximately eleven million people in the Sahel may soon be victims of famine. And the fighting will make it even more difficult to get help to the suffering population.