Inter-community violence in Mali escalates

The escalation of inter-community violence in central Mali continues to cause a massive internal displacement of people.

These herders and farmers are some of the latest arrivals to this Internally Diplaced Persons (IDP) camp in Senou, outside Bamako. Mody Issa Barry’s family had to move four times before coming here.

“The Dozons arrived in our village. They didn’t attack the village, but they took all our cattle. So I decided to leave the village with my family and go to Kanadari. We were only there for a few months when another attack by Dozon took place. We went to Somadougou. A few weeks ago, we managed to escape to Bamako. When we arrived, we headed for the camp near the Faladie cattle market. There was no room there and it was dirty, so we moved back down to this site,“said Mody Issa Barry, internally displaced person in Mali.

For the first time since Islamist uprising in northern Mali in 2012 people are fleeing to the south of the country due to increased insecurity, putting pressure on the local communities that are supporting them with their little resources.

Nationally, we recorded a peak of more than 120,000 internally displaced persons, something we had not seen for several years since the events of 2012. This results in a huge deterioration and an unexpected increase in the number of displaced people,” said Ute Kollies, Head of the UN bureau of Mali for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.

Violence between rival communities has intensified this year.

The government of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has pledged to disarm the militias, but instability is still fuelled by the presence of jihadists, who use northern and central Mali as launching pads for their attacks across the Sahel.