In Mali, the security situation is deteriorating, the humanitarian situation too, and funding has never been so lacking, according to the latest bulletin from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), published at the beginning of June and which concerns the months of April and May.
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More than seven million people, mostly children, are in need of humanitarian aid. Mali and 1.3 million people will be food insecure by August, according to the UN office for humanitarian affairs in Mali. This is the assessment drawn from the latest bulletin published by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), concerning the months of April and May. These persons ” will have to depend on food assistance with drastic consequences ”, in children under five years old, it is indicated.
The difficulties are exacerbated by the displacement of populations, mainly in the regions of Ménaka and Kidal, in the east of the country. Mali currently has more than 350,000 internally displaced people and more than 90,000 refugees in neighboring countries. This did not prevent the country from receiving a massive influx of Burkinabè citizens, themselves fleeing the violence. More than 65,000 of them have arrived since the start of the year, again according to humanitarian coordination.
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The number of people said to be “in crisis situations” has more than tripled since last November, going from less than 16 to more than 60,000 for all the northern regions and that of Mopti (center of the country). In the classification of humanitarian needs, this is the so-called “emergency” phase, i.e. the fourth level out of five, the last before the final “famine-humanitarian disaster” phase.
Finally, access difficulties, linked to the security context, hamper the work of humanitarians, but funding problems are not the least concern. Only 10% of the 2024 response plan is assured, according to the UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs in Mali, an unprecedented situation in the last ten years.