Map of key areas in Mali affected by the civil war. The regional ECOWAS grouping is trying to mediate the conflict between the MNLA and Bamako., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
17 May 2012
Last updated at 03:20 ET
Mali coup: Tuaregs tell of ethnic attacks
Up to 60,000, mostly Tuareg, people now live in the makeshift Mbera camp
Since rebels seized control of much of Mali's vast northern desert region, tens of thousands of people, mainly from Tuareg communities, have fled to neighbouring countries. BBC Afrique's Maud Julien visited the refugee camp of Mbera in Mauritania.
"My own parents' house was burnt down in January, right after the beginning of the Tuareg rebellion in the north of Mali," Oumar Ag Abdul Kader says.
"All of my things - my motorcycle, my computer, my mattress were burned. They did not kill anyone. The police came before anyone got hurt, but it was too late to stop the fire."
Mr Kader does not know exactly who attacked his house in Mali's capital Bamako - just that they were black Malians, and none of them were wearing uniforms.
The pale-skinned Tuaregs, who inhabit northern Mali, have long complained of neglect and disrimination by the government dominated by southerns in far-off Bamako.
In February, Mr Kader says attacks increased against Tuareg in Bamako and the nearby garrison town of Kati.
"People started attacking anything Tuareg: They burnt houses, cars and attacked anyone with white skin - even Arabs," he says.
'Tuareg's fault'
Mr Kader's new home is a canvas tent in the desert, emblazoned with the blue of the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR.
Mbera refugee camp in Mauritania is 50km (30 miles) from the border with Mali - and hosts 60,000 people, mainly from Mali's Tuareg community.
Schoolteacher Mr Assala fled after he overheard threats from his colleagues
Some of the refugees fled the south of Mali - out of fear of the sort of reprisal attack Mr Kader suffered.
Abdul Ag Mohamed Assala moved to Bamako from the northern city of Kidal when the rebellion broke out - only to find tension in the capital quickly escalated, forcing him to flee across the border.
"There were riots and I was afraid that they would take me for a member of al-Qaeda in the Maghreb or the MNLA [rebel National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad]," says Abdul Ag Mohamed Assala, the headmaster of a school set up in Mbera.
"I was not threatened directly, but colleagues at my office were talking, saying all of the Malian crisis, including the coup, was the fault of the Tuareg people," Mr Assala says.
"Some of them were saying the Tuareg people killed their relatives - and that now they must do the same to the Tuareg who are among them."
Mr Assala says he was especially shocked when he saw a Tuareg policeman being beaten by his colleagues because he introduced himself as a Malian, rather than by the name of his tribe.
When news of January's Tuareg rebellion reached Bamako, panic spread through the Tuareg community and people fled - often leaving all their belongings behind.
'Child of the camp'
"I left all my money in my bank account, I didn't take any of my things, I just ran," says Mr Hamel, who works for an international aid agency in Bamako.
One of the reasons people say they fled so quickly is that the events of the early 1990s were still fresh in their minds.
During that period - the last time Tuareg rebels took up arms - hundreds of civilians were killed by the Malian army.
It is not Mr Hamel's first time in Mbera - he calls himself a "child of the camp".
He went to school there for several years - having fled Mali with his family in the early 1990s.
Many Tuareg families have also fled the north because of rising insecurity since the rebels took over.
In January, after a couple of years of relative peace, several rebel groups, including the MNLA and the Islamist Ansar Dine, launched a rebellion - the fourth Tuareg uprising since Mali's independence in 1960.
Mr Mohamed, who is an MNLA fighter, says the rebels are not looting and killing
The MNLA's aim was to set up their own autonomous Azawad region, which they have declared although no country has recognised it.
Ansar Dine fought to establish Sharia or strict Islamic law, which they have started to do in Timbuktu, where they largely control.
Their task was made easy by March's military coup in Bamako - and the rebels swept into the main northern towns of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu without meeting much resistance from the Malian army.
Abdul Aziz Ag Mohamed is a MNLA fighter. He is in Mbera visiting his wife and family who fled from Lere because, they say, there was no food.
Mr Mohamed was also a child during the Tuareg rebellion of the 1990s.
His grandfather, a religious leader, and his uncle, a doctor, were killed by the Malian army - it is that memory that influenced his decision to become a rebel.
He insists he would never harm civilians - and blames reports of atrocities, including rapes and killings, committed in the north on rogue criminal elements and armed militia, which, he says, are taking advantage of the instability.
Mr Mohamed says 400 MNLA members are working to restore law and social order in Lere, the town close to the border of Mauritania where he was based until 4 May.
"Now that we control the area, we have no other objective than to stabilise it, and to show the world that we are in our own state and that we deserve a free, democratic and independent state. "
He says in the area around Lere, unknown groups are transporting weapons and waving MNLA flags - but, he insists, they do not belong to the rebel movement.
Conditions in the rebel-held north are very difficult - and many people are fleeing because they are faced with rising prices, food and fuel shortages as trade via Mauritania dries up.
"I was very far away from the fighting but we couldn't stay because we couldn't find food, we couldn't find cars, we couldn't find anything," says Mohamed el-Moktar Ag Mohamed, a refugee from the region of Timbuktu.
Life in Mbera camp is not easy: The medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) says residents share one latrine between 220 people and, due to insufficient aid, do not receive enough food rations to meet the nutritional needs of the children in the camp, some of whom are suffering from malnutrition.
Respiratory infections and diarrhoea are also common, according to MSF.
Despite the difficulties in the camp, continuing instability in Mali means many people prefer to be there - and the chance of their returning home anytime soon are very slim.
"We don't know who controls what," says Meini Ould Chebani, an Arab former civil servant also from the Timbuktu region.
"Where I am from, only women and children are left, those who were too weak and too poor to leave," he says.
"There are no local authorities to protect them, no mayors, no police, no judges. There is no-one. Most of them were from the south of Mali so they fled back. "
"We need an authority in Bamako so there can be someone to negotiate with, because we cannot stay in this situation."
Magharebia
Published on Magharebia (http://www.magharebia.com)
http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2012/05/17/feature-02
Mali constitutional crisis continues
17/05/2012
As the Malian interim government's deadline approaches, stakeholders struggle to find common ground.
By Jemal Oumar for Magharebia in Nouakchott – 17/05/12
Mali's military junta is resisting an ECOWAS proposal for a year-long interim government.
Time to end Mali's political deadlock is running out.
The military junta, the interim government and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have less than a week to resolve the country's leadership crisis. By law, the tenure of Interim President Dioncounda Traoré must end on May 22nd.
Amadou Sanogo, who led the military coup that ousted President Amadou Toumani Toure in March, adheres to the constitutional point that limits the interim government to 40 days.
ECOWAS mediators, however, want Traoré to lead the government for another 12 months, in order to allow the country to prepare for elections.
Earlier this week, Sanogo proposed a "national convention" under the chairmanship of Interim Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra and the supervision of Traoré.
"It is about time we solved our problems ourselves and reached an agreement before May 22nd to avoid jumping into the unknown," Sanogo said on May 14th.
In his proposal, all viable forces, including political parties, civil society organisations, and unions would choose a president to lead the upcoming period until a Mali presidential election could be held.
Sanogo's plan has failed to gain support from the political elite.
"Politicians believe that the constitution must be respected and that the tenure of the current president must be extended until a presidential election is held and a new president is elected," Renaissance Party leader Tibile Drame said.
"This is not the first time that the insurrectionists proposed national reconciliation in order to prevent the restoration of constitutional system," he said, adding that the proposal was "just an attempt to legitimise the coup".
Malians are also voicing concerns over the stalemate.
"If the two sides don't reach a final solution to overcome the strangling crisis and start looking for solutions to counter threats of terrorism in northern provinces, this will pose a threat to the future of security and stability in Mali and Sahel in general," Malian journalist Bab Ahmed said.
Abu Bakr al-Sedik Ag Hami, a professor at Bamako University, stressed the need for supervision from a figure capable of "bringing together all political and unionist entities".
"I support the national reconciliation initiative that the military have called for provided it's not under the supervision of the military or current interim president," he told Magharebia.
"As to the next president, I suggest choosing him from a religious or ethnic minority because they are the only ones capable of creating a balance between the competing, conflicting and contradicting Malian groups," he added.
Magharebia
Published on Magharebia (http://www.magharebia.com)
http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2012/05/16/feature-02
Azawad schools reopen under strict Sharia
16/05/2012
After seizing control of Timbuktu and Gao last month, extremists re-opened schools and imposed new rules on students and teachers.
By Jemal Oumar for Magharebia in Nouakchott – 16/05/12
In a city known as an ancient centre of learning, armed Islamists are now trying to force their own educational agenda on the people of Timbuktu.
Armed groups in northern Mali are forcing their Salafist version of Sharia upon their captive populations. Their latest target: school children.
Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and their Ansar al-Din allies re-opened schools in Timbuktu and Gao on May 7th, but students returned to something unknown before the March coup.
"Islamists imposed a system separating boys from girls at classes," Journal Du Mali reported. 'Students were also separated according to shifts, with boys now studying in the morning and girls studying in the evening".
The Islamists also decreed that schools could no longer teach philosophy and biology.
"In addition to cancelling some subjects and separating girls from boys, the Islamists forced young girls at schools to wear Islamic clothing that requires them to fully cover their heads and bodies," Abou Bacrin Cissé, an education representative in Timbuktu, told Magharebia.
In response, some families have pulled their children out of school, some students have refused to be tested under these conditions, while others, however, have "accepted the status quo because they can't afford the alternatives," Bacrin Cissé said.
"This is not acceptable," Timbuktu mayor Hallé Ousman said as he condemned the radical groups' approach to education. "It has caused a shock for residents, especially students' parents," he said.
In Gao, the situation is not much different from Timbuktu. Even though boys and girls are allowed to sit in the same class, the boys are at the front of class and the girls are in the back, Malian daily L'Express reported.
Anara Miga, a teacher in Gao, described her work since schools re-opened there in late April.
"As teachers, we're searched on a daily basis by Ansar al-Din," she said. "They fear we may teach some subjects that they consider 'prohibited' and 'contrary to God's Sharia'," she added.
Meanwhile, Timbuktu parent Abdallah Hamanu complained that what is going on was the same as "medieval times". The similarities manifest themselves "in terms of restricting thought, preventing the teaching of some subjects under the pretext that they promote infidelity, and establishing inquisition courts", he said.
"It's a crime against children," Hamanu added.
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