More People Displaced By Turmoil in Mali Than Previously Estimated – UN Refugee Agency

New data on the number of Malians who have left or been driven from their homes amid conflict and other threats show the total is almost 60 per cent higher than previously thought, the United Nations refugee agency said today.
There are now thought to be at least 203,845 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the land-locked West African country, up from a previous count of 118,795, a spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) told a news briefing in Geneva.
The revised figure comes as the agency also highlighted a shortfall in funding it said it needed to help IDPs in Mali, as well as Malian refugees in surrounding countries.
“To date, we have received 41.7 per cent of the $153.7 million we required to assist the Malian refugees and IDPs,” the UNHCR spokesperson, Adrian Edwards, told reporters.
He added that one consequence of the funding shortfall is that UNHCR cannot provide many refugees with recreational and professional activities to ensure they are “meaningfully occupied,” noting that a lack of activities could lead to some refugees – especially the young – leaving the camps and returning to danger-spots.
“Schools have not started yet in the camps as school structures are still being built,” Mr. Edwards said. “UNHCR fears that without schooling, children and adolescents may return to Mali, where there is a risk of recruitment by various armed groups.”
Currently led by Interim President Dioncounda Traoré, Mali has been dealing with a range of security, political and humanitarian problems since the start of the year. Fighting between Government forces and Tuareg rebels broke out in the country’s north in January. Since then, radical Islamists have seized control of the north, where they have imposed an extremist version of Muslim Sharia law as well as restrictions that target women in particular.
The instability and insecurity resulting from the renewed clashes, as well as the proliferation of armed groups in the region, drought and political instability in the wake of a military coup d’état in March, have led over many Malians to flee, including some 250,000 people to flee to neighbouring countries in addition to those displaced internally.

Source:www.allafrica.com

Posted to the blog by George Bright-Abu