Split into North and South: A Sahel War in the Offing

Abstract

In the Sahel a war is spreading.Within three months it has overtaken the towns in an area of northern Mali larger than France. 365,000 people have taken flight within the country and across its borders into neighbouring Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Niger. But it is not the only disaster to strike northern Mali. The people are not only fleeing the violence, a reminder of the Tuareg war of 1990 to 1992, they are also trying to escape drought and famine. Little in the way of facts and developments is leaking out to the world’s public. Journalists, foreigners and most western aid organisations have left. The situation is too dangerous. At best, information is being received by telephone from the border towns of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu. Uninhabited desert areas are isolated from modern means of communication. And yet reports on the region paint a clear picture of good and evil. Images of defiled graves in Timbuktu show how Islamist fighters and Tuareg rebels are destroying a world cultural heritage dating back centuries. The inhabitants of Timbuktu appear to have no choice but to watch helplessly as the armed and masked men go about their heartless business. In Gao, a town on Mali’s border with Niger, the ‘Movement for Uniqueness and Jihad in West Africa’ (MUJAO) is said to have taken the whole population hostage, a circle of land mines ensuring that no one escapes.