A couple of burned cars and abandoned Malian tanks now remind visitors that violent fights occurred in Diabaly in central Mali. Credit: Marc-André Boisvert/IPS

By Ousseini Issa
MANGAIZE, Niger , Mar 5 2013 (IPS)

Malian refugees in Mangaïze, northwest Niger, are keen to return home to start work and be able to support themselves once more.

“We do have food and water, even if the food is not varied. Our primary schoolchildren are back in class,” Aissa Hama, a 39-year-old mother of five, told IPS. “But it’s hard to be in exile, dependent on the help of others.”

She is one of thousands of Malians who spilled across the border into neighbouring countries in the months prior to and after the occupation of the country’s north by armed Islamist groups allied with Al-Qaeda back in April 2012. The Islamists held onto the country’s north until February, when a French intervention allowed the Malian army to reclaim the territory.

The Mangaïze camp was officially created in May 2012, following an influx of a large number of Malian families fleeing to Niger, said Idrissa Abou, a member of Niger’s National Commission for Refugees.

In addition to a monthly food ration, refugees have access to drinking water from three small boreholes, and primary health care. There are sanitation facilities with 250 showers and toilets respectively, and a household waste management system.

Refugees also have access to administrative services, a school and, with the opening of a police station, a security service.

“At the moment, there are 1,522 families, which amounts to a population of 6,037 mainly made up of Malian refugees, but there are also Nigerien returnees,” Abou told IPS, adding that an overwhelming majority of the refugees are from Ménaka, the closest Malian town to the Ouallam municipality in southwestern Niger.

He added that the numbers in the camp had increased in February after some 1,700 refugees from the nearby Bani Bangou camp were transferred to Mangaïze.

The transfer meant that Mangaïze camp had to be extended by 11 additional hectares from its original 52, according to Ibrahim Kebé, the local coordinator for Islamic Relief Worldwide and director of the camp.

“But with the continued support of the Niger government and the cooperation of other humanitarian agencies, we will be able to overcome the challenges,” he told IPS.

Access to enough food has been one of those challenges.

According to the latest statistics of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Niamey, the Niger capital, each refugee in Mangaïze receives on average of 1,849 kilocalories (kcal) per day, against the standard 2,100 kcal, and 10.8 litres of water, compared to the recommended 20.

For some, the rations have not been enough.

Aissata Yindou, a 36-year-old mother of four who has been living in the Mangaïze refugee camp since March 2012, told IPS that the food rations needed to be increased.

“We only get a 50-kg bag of rice for the family, and a 0.75-kg can of cooking oil per person. We don’t receive any spices to eat with this food. They have to increase the food ration,” she said.

She added that access to medication was also limited.

“This eye infection is so painful sometimes I can’t sleep. I can’t get it treated because the camp doesn’t have the medication and I don’t have the money to buy it,” said a distressed Yindou.

Hadiza Issaka Abdou, a nurse at the camp’s health centre, told IPS that they were doing their best to treat patients with what medication was available.

“We get many complaints, but we are doing the best we can in terms of on-site medical treatment. We don’t have medicines for every illness. The main diseases here are malaria, diarrhoea and skin diseases,” she said.

But Akiline Agbogoli, the vice president of the Malian Refugee Community at the camp, told IPS that they were being well treated.

“Being away from home, we can’t have everything we need, but in terms of food and basics, we have been well treated,” Agbogoli said.

However, for many here, it is not enough. Saddam Moussa worked as a butcher in Ménaka, in Gao Region, until the Azawad National Liberation Movement, the Malian Tuareg rebel group, captured the town.

“I am tired of doing nothing, waiting for others to take care of me. I want to work and live off the fruits of my labour,” he told IPS.

Mohammed Lamine Aghabass, an office worker at the Ménaka customs office, also wants to return home. “We welcome the military support from Mali’s allies to free our hometowns from the thugs who chased us away. We are in a hurry to get back to our normal lives, but we can’t go back without a go-ahead from the Niger government and the agencies that are helping us,” he told IPS.

According to the UNHCR, there were 53,135 refugees from Mali in Niger in January 2013.

Communities in northern Mali are in need of humanitarian intervention. Pictured here are civilians in Niono, northern Mali. Credit: Marc-André Boisvert/IPS

By Emmanuel Haddad
NIAMEY, Feb 23 2013 (IPS)

When northern Malian refugees fled their country for Niger in 2012, they expected they would be able to return home shortly afterwards. But despite the armed intervention by the French army in the West African nation, few of the 50,000 Niger-based refugees are ready to leave for home just yet.

“Have you watched the news? Do you honestly think we can go home under these conditions?” asked Omar*, the vice-president of the Association for Malian Refugee Families in Niamey, the Nigerien capital.

Omar and thousands of others spilled across the border into neighboring countries in the months following the occupation of the country’s north by armed Islamist groups allied with Al-Qaeda back in April 2012.

Comprising a mix of Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA), and Ansar Dine, the rebels were able to hold on the territory until a French intervention allowed the Malian army to reclaim the north last month.

Omar’s hometown, Gao, however, continues to be a scene of heavy fighting and suicide bombings ever since French and Malian troops took back the town last month.

Safety is not the only issue that’s keeping Omar from returning. “I am a civil servant in Gao and have no job to return to until the public service is back on its feet,” he said.

Yearning for home

Seydou*, a physical science teacher who fled Ansongo in eastern Mali in May last year, does not think it foolhardy to return home.

“All of us are thinking about going back,” he told IPS in the Nouveau Marché suburb of Niamey. “To be honest, I am longing to see Gao again. In fact, it’s an obsession. What’s more, my close relatives call me each week to encourage me to come home.”

But like Omar, he is concerned about how he will earn a living.

“I can’t go back to my teaching job if the schools have not reopened. In any event, there has been no bus service from Niamey to Mali since the French army began its military campaign in January.”

But Moussa*, the owner of a clothing store in the centre of Gao, has no such concerns and plans to make his way back home soon. “I am getting ready to leave. I have already started sending merchandise ahead to Gao.”

He is undeterred by the threat of the mines along the road to Gao or attacks by gangs of robbers.

“Things will calm down,” he said, citing reports of the army making house-to-house searches for members of MUJWA (the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa), one of the militant groups.

“The militants would rather hand themselves in than risk the safety of the families who have sheltered them,” he believed.

Aminata*, the president of the Association of Refugee Families, lives in a home sheltering six Malian families. But she does not plan to return home while MUJWA is still in Gao.

“The Islamists want women to be like furniture in the house, to stop us from going outside without a veil, from living. So we left.”

Many “light skinned” refugees, in particular, worry that they will be the target of reprisals, she said, if they are identified with Ansar Dine Islamists or Members of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), a Tuareg group that led a rebellion in the north shortly before the Islamists moved in early last year.

Pastoralists caught in the crossfire

But Mali’s rural pastoralists will be most at risk when they return home, according to Dodo Boureïma, the general secretary of the Association for the Development of Livestock Breeders.

“In northern Mali, pastoralists are caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, armed robbers prey on them. On the other, the army accuses them of being a cover for the rebels to cross the border,” Boureïma told IPS.

“I even heard recently that a herder was shot by soldiers and his herd was set loose.”

Unlike urban refugees, the pastoralists might be forced to leave Niger at the start of the rainy season, he said. The organisation now has to plan how pastoralist will return to Bankilaré, in the northeast of Tillabéri on the Malian border.

“When the rains come in May or June, Nigerien farmers are likely to want them to leave, because the livestock might damage their crops and compromise their food security.”

“The pastoralists know they must be ready to move back anytime, but for now, both the Nigerien authorities and citizens understand the difficulties facing the people of northern Mali,” Boureïma continued.

*The names of Malian refugees have been changed at their request for their safety.