By Paul Jeffrey
Boubanar Traore wants to go home. He’s not sure how he’ll survive there, however, so for now he sits in a camp for displaced people, hoping that things will change.
“If we go back home, what can we do there? We lost our houses and our assets, so what will we do? We need help in getting our lives started again,” said Traore, who fled from his village of Hombori in 2012 after Islamist rebels killed the town’s chief.
The Islamists seized most of Mali’s North until being driven out by French troops earlier this year.
Traore is a mechanic, but his tools got left behind when he and his family fled in the middle of the night. After his family left, he said, the roof of their home collapsed during heavy rains.
Today, he lives in a tent provided by the Swiss Red Cross.
The United Nations said that on June 20, more than 353,000 people were displaced within Mali, and more than 174,000 were living as refugees in neighboring countries.
Unlike many political crises in Africa that produce huge camps of displaced people and refugees, most of those internally displaced inside Mali took shelter in the homes of relatives, mostly in Bamako, the nation’s capital. The Malian government discouraged the establishment of large camps, and aid officials admit they were not expecting the massive exodus from the North.
“It happened so fast the U.N. had no time to react,” said Sean Gallagher, the country director for the U.S. bishops’ Catholic Relief Services.
So when displaced families moved in with relatives, CRS and other aid groups offered food and cash to help out. For the 70 families in the camp who had no relatives with whom they could seek shelter, CRS provided water and sanitation facilities, as well as hygiene kits.
“The camp is peaceful. We have clean water. We have food, but no money for salt and sugar,” said Fatima Mata, who fled southward when rebels overran her hometown of Gossi. She bakes bread early in the morning in the center of the camp, selling it to other displaced families to earn money to buy the additional items she needs.
Mata said she also wants to return home, but the security situation has her worried. Although the jihadists were chased out of the major towns, they remain not far away, as evidenced by recent attacks, including suicide bombings.
“The French saved us. I just hope they don’t leave,” she said.
At first, the French military intervention was widely welcomed in Mali. Many new parents named their children after French President Francois Hollande. Yet as the crisis has lingered on, finding an exit strategy for the French troops is proving more complicated.
Some of France’s role is supposed to be assumed by a contingent of more than 12,000 U.N.-sponsored African troops and police officers, most of whom are already in the country as part of a regional African force. On July 1, they put on blue helmets and became peacekeepers, but many, including U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, have questioned whether they will prove as capable as the French in keeping the terrorists at bay.
A June 18 deal between the government and Tuareg rebels, who invited the al-Qaida-linked jihadist groups to join them in their struggle to form an independent nation in the North, promises to help ease tensions, particularly around the town of Kidal, which French forces had left in the hands of a Tuareg rebel group.
National elections have been scheduled for July 28, but whether the country can pull off the vote on such short notice remains to be seen. Much of the international community seems to think a bad election is better than no election. Many of the displaced agree.
“We’re going to vote here, even though we’re displaced, because it will help Mali to have a new president. The current president has no real power. A new one will have legitimacy,” Traore said.
The crisis in the North shows no signs of waning soon. The French military campaign continues, and in recent weeks families fleeing south number roughly the same as those who have ventured to return to Timbuktu and other northern areas liberated by the French.
Some, like Traore, would like to return after the elections, before the new school year starts for his children. But government services — including education, remain limited in much of the North, including education, remain limited, and no banks have reopened since being looted by the jihadists.
Bony Mpaka, coordinator of the Mopti office of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said the military’s successes against the jihadists means that “humanitarian space” for the U.N. and NGOs is increasing.
“But the needs are also increasing. New attacks in Niger are making some refugees think that Mali might be safer. And when the displaced do return home in large numbers, supporting them is going to be much more complicated and expensive for us than supporting them while displaced, because we must support the entire community as it moves from the emergency phase into long-term development,” Mpaka said.
The biggest problem faced by the humanitarian community, Mpaka explained, is the perception that all is well in Mali since the French took matters into their own hands.
“Many in the international community think that the crisis in Mali ended when the French military intervened. With all the attention being paid to Syria and other crises, it’s hard to get people to focus on Mali. Or if they do, they’re giving more money to the U.N. military mission and neglecting the humanitarian response.”
Gallagher said CRS will be ready to accompany returnees when they do decide to go back to the North.
“We’ll have them get their livelihoods started again, help farmers get on their feet and get their crops in the ground,” he said.
Gallagher said that in the wake of the rebellion last year, fostering reconciliation among different ethnic groups in the North will not be easy.
“The elections will happen because Western countries want them to happen. But the big priority for most people in Mali is for the government to retake the North and negotiate peace. The Tuaregs can play a major role in that, despite latent animosity toward them for what happened,” he said.
“But ethnic tensions remain, and we’re going to have problems with reprisals. Peacebuilding will be a major focus for us, and we know that’s going to be a long-term effort,” he said. – CNS