April 22, 2012 Mali

Mali gets worse says Church

Fears are growing over the humanitarian situation in northern Mali. Some 268,000 people have now fled northern areas seized last month by Tuareg rebels and Islamists. (from blog.caritas.org)

“The humanitarian situation in northern Mali is worsening day by day,” said Fr. Edmond Dembele, Secretary of the Episcopal Conference of Mali. “Food and medicine are increasingly rare, because grocery stores, hospitals and health centres were ransacked by the rebels.”

Rebels have declared an independent state across a huge swathe land, roughly the same size as France.

“We try to establish humanitarian corridors, but in the absence of an agreement with the rebel movements, for the moment nothing has been done,” said Fr. Dembele. “The population in the north of Mali continue to flee to neighbouring countries or in the south of the country.”

Read the whole article on blog.caritas.org.

Sources: Fides, OCHA