Reports of serious human rights violations in northern Mali, including abductions, arbitrary detention, executions and sexual violence
p> LONDON (AlertNet) - The U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) says the humanitarian emergency sparked by conflict in Mali has escalated beyond expectations, and has raised its funding needs for operations to help people uprooted by the violence this year to $153.7 million from the $35.6 million it requested in February."The sharp degeneration of the situation in Mali, which has led to the flight and continued forced displacement of a huge number of Malians in such a short time, is totally unexpected," Liz Ahua, UNHCR's deputy director for West Africa, Central Africa and the Great Lakes region, said in a statement on Thursday.
People have been forced to flee their homes following a Tuareg uprising that began in mid-January, a deepening political crisis caused by a coup d'état in March and a proliferation of armed groups in the north, where an independent state has been proclaimed.
There have been reports of serious human rights violations in northern Mali, including abductions, arbitrary detention and extrajudicial executions, as well as sexual and gender-based violence, UNHCR said.
Since February's appeal, the agency has received only $20.5 million for its work to help the displaced – a level it called "woefully inadequate".
"We desperately need more funds now, ahead of the rainy season, which starts in June and is often marked by flooding," UNHCR said.
Unless aid is stocked close to places hosting refugees, a disaster threatens during the three months the sites are likely to be cut off by floodwaters, Ahua warned.
The latest update from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that around 145,000 people have been displaced within Mali, and 168,000 have been registered as refugees in Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Niger.
But UNHCR expects those numbers to rise further by the end of the year, saying it is planning to help 240,000 refugees and 200,000 internally displaced Malians through 2012 – five times the number it in February thought would need assistance.
Most of the refugees are women and children who have settled in remote areas of the Sahel region, where local communities are already facing food and water shortages due to drought.
Malnutrition among children under five years old is "alarming", particularly at refugee sites in Mauritania and Niger, UNHCR said, underlining "an urgent need" to increase water supplies and improve sanitary conditions.
Communities hosting the Malian refugees are already stretched to breaking point, and this is starting to show.
The OCHA report notes that heightened tensions have been observed in Burkina Faso between refugees and the local population over the use of limited resources, including pasture and water.
U.N. agencies and other aid groups are now working on a joint appeal for funds to deal with the Mali crisis, which is due to be ready in early June, OCHA adds.
(Editing by Rebekah Curtis)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
