In a normal year, the harvest in November would produce enough food for the people in the village to last all year. But the harvest last year was disastrous, and people in Mintou’s village have already run out of food.
By Helen Blakesley and Caritas Internationalis staff American Caritas member Catholic Relief Services, Caritas Niger (SECADEV) and its partners are mobilising emergency water, hygiene and sanitation facilities to meet the urgent needs of thousands of Malian refugees in neighbouring Niger. Fighting in northern Mali between the army and a rebel group has forced more than ...
“The sound of gunfire woke us up,” said Mr Mahmouda, who fled his village in Mali after it came under attack from rebels. “Although we were not directly threatened, we were scared. We took all we could carry and fled in the direction of Niger,” he told Caritas Niger. Some 120,000 people have been forced ...
In Tinzawaten there’s next to nothing to eat or drink, the houses are roofless shells, it’s freezing at night, scorching in the day, murder and rape go unpunished, women are sold as slaves and babies are born in the open. This is the desert of Mali. The people of Tinzawaten are migrants who’ve been deported ...
On 9 February at the WSF in Dakar, Secours Catholique and its partners held a workshop called "Migrants: give them a dignified welcome!" Bagayoko Seckna, coordinator of the Malian branch of the international NGO Environment and Development Action in the Third World (ENDA-TM), raised the issue of child migrants and their difficult living conditions.
Food emergencies are not inevitable in the Sahel according to Caritas. The region and the international community need to show greater political will to fight the problems.