Little Boy Plays Again As WFP Works To Rebuild Lives In Northern Mali

By World Food Program

After three weeks of nutritious food, Souleymane's health
improved. Credit: WFP / Daouda Guirou

As displaced people and refugees start to voluntarily return to northern Mali, the World Food Programme is scaling up its operations to help rebuild livelihoods while also responding to immediate food and nutritional needs. Saouda Salihou, who returned to Gao with her young family, explains why this assistance is vital.

 

GAO - Sitting in front of her straw hut, Saouda Salihou proudly watches her two-year-old son Souleymane as he plays with his ‘toy cars’ – two tin cans attached to a length of rope. The toddler mischievously teases his older brother as he plays. Salihou, 27, can hardly believe this joyful, healthy child is the same boy she brought to a health clinic just three weeks ago.

 

During that visit to Gao’s health centre, Souleymane was diagnosed with moderate acute malnutrition. Nurses had weighed him and measured his mid-upper-arm circumference (MUAC) - a quick method to assess nutritional status.

 

Salihou was given Plumpy’Sup, a ready-to-use nutritional supplement delivered to health centres in Gao by WFP, in partnership with Action Against Hunger.

 

“After I started giving the product to my child, he quickly gained weight,” said Salihou. “The following week, I was amongst the first people to arrive at the health centre for my child’s medical appointment."

 

These weekly appointments allow health agents to monitor vulnerable children’s nutritional status. Mothers also receive information on nutrition, and are given cooking demonstrations, using local products like peanuts, millet and maize.

 

Salihou attended many of these cookery classes, but said she often did not have enough money to cook the nutritious meals she was shown.

 

She is not alone. In northern Mali, three out of four households are food insecure and heavily reliant on food assistance, according to the results of a joint survey carried out by WFP and the government of Mali in September this year.

 

Salihou returned to Gao in mid-October after spending around 18 months in the capital Bamako following her family’s flight from the conflict that gripped northern Mali. But her husband was unable to return to Gao with her as they could not afford the transport fees.

 

He sends a little money to the family, and Salihou uses this to buy and resell condiments in Gao market. But the little she earns is never enough.

 

This is why WFP’s school meals programme in Gao is so important. One of the reasons Salihou returned was to send her children to school in their home region.

 

Her 10-year-old daughter Alima is now enrolled, and was delighted to rediscover her old friends in the classroom. She also enjoys a hot meal of enriched porridge every morning and another hot meal at midday.

 

“I have struggled to feed my children since I returned and it’s a real relief for me that Alima is getting food at school. She is also very motivated to go to school,” said Salihou.

 

WFP provides school meals to around 120,000 children in 576 schools in northern Mali. As more schools reopen, WFP is expanding this programme. WFP is also extending its malnutrition prevention and treatment in areas where health centres have started to function again.

 

“WFP is scaling up its operations and requires more funding,” said Sally Haydock, WFP’s Representative in Mali.

 

“The drought and subsequent food crisis in 2012, combined with the protracted security crisis have made it very difficult for the most vulnerable people to rebuild their lives. They will require food assistance throughout 2013 and into 2014,” she said.

 

For more go to www.wfp.org
Follow WFP on Twitter

Sound water management key to building resilience in Africa’s Sahel

Agricultural potential waiting to be unlocked – greater attention and investment needed

Sound water management holds the key to building resilience in Africa's Sahel and can free rural communities from the vicious cycle of weather-related food security crises that have plagued the region over recent years, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said today at a high level meeting on resilience in the Sahel, focusing on irrigation and water management, with participants from Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal.

 

With both drought and flooding posing recurring challenges to the livelihoods of farmers and pastoralists, "water is often a problem in the Sahel, whether too much or too little. And the poorest and most vulnerable are the most affected," he noted.

 

A demanding region, with potential

 

Owing to its often harsh agro-climatic and environmental conditions, the Sahel is one of the most vulnerable regions of the world.

 

Still, agriculture is the most important economic activity in the Sahel.  Local economies and livelihoods in the Sahelian countries depend heavily on soil, water and vegetation, but the state of these resources has been steadily deteriorating as a result of expanding human settlement, erosion and demand for food, fodder, fuelwood and water. 

 

Yet agriculture in the region - put on a path to resilience - holds great potential, Graziano da Silva argued.

 

While the Sahel is characterized by low and erratic annual precipitation, with irregular short rainy seasons, its renewable water resources put regional supplies above the standard water scarcity limit of 1,000 m3/yr per capita.  Indeed, with the notable exception of Burkina Faso, there is no aggregate physical water scarcity in the Sahel.

 

 "The region's agriculture potential, when properly mobilized, could easily go beyond local sales and serve regional and even international markets," said Graziano da Silva.

 

But to unlock this potential, more effective, sustainable and integrated management of water resources for agricultural productivity and rural development is necessary.

  

Getting there

 

The FAO chief urged governments, development partners, academia, civil society and private sector participants at the Dakar meeting to be creative and uncompromising in their search for solutions.

"We have the tools to transform the vulnerable communities of the Sahel into much stronger and more resilient communities, and we cannot wait anymore for the next drought or the next flood," he said.

 

Investments in small-scale water harvesting and water storage have a tremendous impact on rural families, he said.

 

Flexible irrigation systems giving farmers better control over water can significantly enhance their incomes.

 

At the same time, more investment in medium to large-scale irrigation systems through effective partnerships between public and private sectors is needed, according to Graziano da Silva.

 

The event in Dakar was second of two back-to-back high-level meetings on boosting rural resilience in the Sahel organized by the World Bank, the Comité permanent Inter-Etats de Lutte contre la Sécheresse dans le Sahel (CILSS) and the governments of Mauritania and Senegal, with the participation also of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA) and the Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS).

 

The first meeting, focused on the needs of Sahelian pastoral communities, took place in Nouakchott, Mauritania, on 29 October.

For more go to www.fao.org
Follow FAO on Twitter

Building communities in the Sahel that can weather shocks

 

By the Food and Agriculture Organization

The time has come to break the "vicious circle" of crises in Africa's Sahel by proactively building up the ability of pastoralist and rural communities to weather drought and other shocks, rather than merely helping them recover from disaster after the fact.

 

"We cannot prevent droughts or floods, but we can put in place measures that will help stop them from turning into famine," FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva today told participants at a high-level event here in the Mauritanian capital.

 

The Nouakchott event, focused on the needs of pastoral communities, is the first of two back-to-back high-level meetings on boosting rural resilience in the Sahel organized by the World Bank, the Comité permanent Inter-Etats de Lutte contre la Sécheresse dans le Sahel (CILSS) and the governments of Mauritania and Senegal. The second, looking at irrigation needs in the region, takes place in Dakar, Senegal on October 30 and 31st.

 

A way of life at risk

 

 

Poor weather and high food prices have in recent years sparked recurring food and nutrition crises in the Sahel, leaving many rural families in precarious circumstances and on a vulnerable footing.

 

Among those most affected are the region's estimated 16 million pastoralists — livestock-reliant people who regularly move their families and animals in search of water and pasture.

 

While pastoralism has long offered a way for these communities to cope with bad weather and a lack of productive land, their vulnerability to drought, flooding, and other disasters has been on the rise due to increasing competition for access to water and grazing lands.

 

 And the Sahel is, and will likely continue to be, one of the world regions most affected by climate change, meaning that drought and other weather extremes will increase the pressures being brought to bear on pastoralists.

 

"Resilience works"

 

Often, when a crisis hits, the animals upon which pastoral families depend for food and income — as well as capital reserves — die in large numbers or are sold off to meet immediate needs. Selling animals might give temporary relief, but it also means the loss of a household's only productive assets, leaving them even more vulnerable to future calamities.

 

"This is a vicious circle that we need to break," Graziano da Silva said during a keynote address at the start of the Nouakchott meeting. "The only way to end recurrent emergencies in the region is to change from a reactive to a proactive and integrated approach, focusing on resilient livelihoods," he added.

 

The evidence shows that resilience works and is proving effective at saving not only lives and livelihoods but also money, the UN food chief argued. For example, in 2003-2004, the cost of reacting to and suppressing a locust plague in the Sahel added up to $500 million.

 

Last year, a similar crisis was avoided via the timely investment of $8 million that prevent a new outbreak from occurring, Graziano da Silva pointed out. Similarly, studies show that supplementary feeding of livestock before crisis hits — thereby preventing animals from dying out during drought, disease outbreaks, or other shocks — is 16 times less expensive than buying new animals after mass-die offs.

 

"At FAO, we are convinced that resilience is key to food security and are raising its prominence in our work," Graziano da Silva said. Increasing the resilience of livelihoods to threats and crises is one of five new strategic objectives recently established by FAO to focus and guide its work.

 

Building on what works

 

Graziano da Silva highlighted a number of areas where more focused action can help improve the resilience of the Sahel's pastoralist communities, including:

 

• Using mobile technology to improve communities' access to weather forecasts and information on vegetation cover, so they can take their animals to where there is forage.
• Scaling up cash for work opportunities that improve rural infrastructure while offering social safety nets.
• Ensuring not only that early warning and response mechanisms are in place, but that they are triggering early reactions.
• Providing various forms of direct support to pastoralists, especially in the area of animal health.
• Supporting the diversification of livelihoods and accumulation of assets by pastoralists.

 

All such efforts will require a joint effort by local communities, governments and the development community, concluded Graziano da Silva.

 

"To build resilience, we cannot work alone. We need to work in partnership," he said.

For more go to www.fao.org
Follow FAO on Twitter

 

Kids Head Back To School In Timbuktu

By World Food Program

Children are headed back to school in the desert city of Timbuktu as life gets back to normal after conflict in northern Mali. The promise of a daily, nutritious meal helps to fill the classrooms, particularly among girls, who might not otherwise be allowed to come. The fighting left northern Mali exposed to widespread malnutrition, a problem which food assistance programmes like school meals can help to address.

For more go to www.wfp.org
Follow WFP on Twitter

 

Growing resilience through community gardens in Gambia

By Katie Robinson, Canadian Red Cross Society

For the first time in 15 years, communities in Gambia found themselves without food and income following poor rainfall during the 2011–2012 harvest season. Families were forced to sell their assets and livestock, or survive on charity and foraging.

 

The Gambia Red Cross Society – with assistance from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the Canadian government – aimed to provide immediate and long-term assistance to vulnerable communities in the North Bank Division and Lower River Region.

 

Using a two-pronged approach, the Red Cross provided emergency life-saving interventions whilst also focusing on longer-term community resilience. Distributions of food, quality rice seeds and fertilizer addressed the immediate needs, whilst the longer-term resilience activities concentrated on women-run vegetable gardens. The Red Cross provided these gardens with infrastructure support, training, drought-resilient seeds, proper fencing and new concrete-lined hand-driven wells.

 

“Before the Red Cross came to support us, we were struggling to feed our families,” says Funneh Touray, who works in the Sukuta Women’s Community Garden in the Lower River Region. “Thanks to their support we are now able to grow our own food, and are no longer facing hardship.”

 

The community gardens are not only thriving, they are generating an income as crops and products like jams and juices are sold to nearby communities. This has allowed parents to send their children to school and pay for health care.

 

Touray is very proud of her community and is looking forward to expanding their garden. They currently have two hectares of fencing around the garden, but only half is currently being used. She is looking forward to the day when more seeds will be planted and there will be more crops to look after.

 

“I have seen a change in my community and I am very happy,” says Touray. “Many organizations have entered my village, but we have never received assistance like we did from the Red Cross. What the Red Cross has done, nobody will forget. We will maintain this garden and continue to work hard to make everyone who supported us proud.”

 

For more go to www.ifrc.org

Follow IFRC on Twitter

 

 

For Malian Refugees, Peace Deal Does Not Guarantee Safe Return

By Alice Thomas, Refugees International

Under a corrugated metal roof at the Goudebou refugee camp in Burkina Faso, eight or nine families huddle in small groups awaiting a food distribution. These are the “new arrivals,” a UN Refugee Agency worker explains – people who recently fled Mali, Burkina’s northern neighbor, and arrived at the camp in recent days.

 

As I study their faces, I notice the rich ethnic diversity reflected in their eyes, skin color, features, and dress. A group of Songhai women sit silently, their eyes taking in their new surroundings. Next to them, a young Tuareg woman prepares tea for her husband and mother while two small children toddle about. But while their language, religions, and ethnicities may be different, they share a common nationality – Malian.

 

Malian refugees wait for a food distribution in Goudebou camp, Burkina Faso
Credit: Refugees International

 

Goudebou sits on the outskirts of the town of Dori in northern Burkina Faso, and at the edge of the Sahelian zone – a semi-arid landscape where tree cover and water are scarce. Opened last year, the camp is now home to 10,000 refugees who have fled violence between the Malian military, Tuareg separatists, and Islamic extremists. A French-led military intervention in January succeeded in retaking the north’s major towns, but led to additional displacement.

 

I ask the Songhai women when they arrived. “Last night,” the daughter, who is about 18, replies in French. When I ask why they fled, she shifts her eyes about nervously, looking to see who is around her. I ask her again and she looks away, not wanting to answer.

 

Later, I sit under a large tent talking to a group of Tuareg men who fled Mali last March. We talk about the peace negotiations taking place in Burkina’s capital city that day, which produced a provisional peace deal between the Malian government and the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), a Tuareg separatist group.

 

I ask the men if they will return to Mali if an agreement is reached. They scoff at my question, shaking their heads. “We cannot return – it is not safe.” 

 

One of the men recounts a story. “Two or three months ago, two Tuareg traders who had been with us here in the camp decided to return to Mali to check their herds,” he says. “We heard that they were killed by members of the Malian army.” Another adds, “Several weeks ago, a young man who was recently married decided to go back to check whether it was safe to bring his wife back. We heard he was also killed. He has not come back. His widow is here in the camp.”

 

A Tuareg man from Mali now living as a refugee in Goudebou camp
Credit: Refugees International

“Don’t you see?” the man explains, “We are guilty by implication. If we return, the Malian army will assume that we fled because we are MNLA. ” Though their individual stories of retribution cannot be confirmed, they fit a troubling pattern of abuses by Malian soldiers – as well as Tuareg rebels – against civilians documented by human rights groups. The very act of return makes these refugees suspect, so creating a safe environment for return could be long and difficult; perceptions will have to change and trust will have to be rebuilt.

 

The next day, I discuss the refugees’ fate with the head of an aid group which has assisted displaced Malians since the crisis began. “There is a great deal of distrust now,” he said, “not just between the Malian army and the Tuaregs, but among local populations – those who fled and those who stayed.” Civilians who sympathized with, or merely submitted to, Islamist groups could also be viewed as collaborators, leading neighbor to turn against neighbor. We discuss whether the implications of this distrust have been fully recognized by the international community as it seeks to move forward with a peace deal and elections in late July.

 

The recent agreement between Mali and the MNLA is certainly a welcome step towards ending the Mali conflict. But the ethnically- and religiously-charged violence that exploded last year not only left deep wounds but also sowed suspicion and distrust, meaning the road to lasting peace in Mali will be a long one.

 

Abuses by all sides must be fully investigated and prosecuted. The UN peacekeeping mission that is now being deployed must also ensure that civilians are protected and peace enforced. But this must be accompanied by a robust reconciliation process led by civil society that has the full support of the Malian government and the international community.

 

Alice Thomas is the Climate Displacement Program Manager at Refugees International, a non-profit organization that works to end displacement and stateless crises worldwide and accepts no government or UN funding.

For more visit http://www.refintl.org/

Follow Refugees International on Twitter
                                                                      

Local factory provides home-grown response to malnutrition in the Niger

By Bob Coen, UNICEF

 

A new report by UNICEF reveals the high prevalence of stunting in children under 5, but also outlines the tremendous opportunities that exist to make it a problem of the past. A factory in Niamey is transforming the way the Niger responds to the threat of malnutrition. It is also transforming the local economy.



In just five years, the company has been able to provide
100 per cent of the country’s ready-to-use therapeutic food.
In 2012, that food treated 370,000 children.

A few hundred metres from the banks of the mighty Niger River, where the routines of fishers and farmers continue as they have for centuries, a modest factory is transforming how this West African nation responds to the threat of malnutrition.

 

Societé Transformation d’Alimentaire (STA) is a wholly owned and operated Nigerien enterprise in the nation’s capital, Niamey. Within the walls of its plant, personnel work shifts on a gleaming, high-tech assembly line. They turn out carton after carton of a peanut-based ready-to-use therapeutic food, the go-to product for treating severe acute malnutrition in children.

 

Response to multiple food crises

 

Since 2005, the Niger has experienced several serious food crises, which have threatened hundreds of thousands of children with severe acute malnutrition. In 2006, UNICEF decided to enter into a unique partnership with the still-fledging STA to help it develop its capacity to manufacture ready-to-use foods locally. In just five years, the company has been able to provide 100 per cent of the country’s ready-to-use food; in 2012, STA delivered 2,800 tonnes of the food, which treated 370,000 children.

 

“[Ready-to-use-foods] have brought about a real revolution in the treatment of children suffering from malnutrition because these are products that meet international standards and the needs of children,” says UNICEF Niger Deputy Representative Isselmou Boukhary. “They are also extremely easy to use in the health centres, and especially at home, which is important in a country like Niger.”

 

“We are very happy about this collaboration,” says STA Deputy General Manager Ismael Barmou, watching trucks being loaded with cartons of the food to be taken to the UNICEF central warehouse. “One of the things we’re most proud of is to be able to be competitive in the international market. So, it’s a win and win partnership, especially for the end use, which are the kids in Niger that are in need of nutritional solutions.”

 

“Soon he will be running”

 

Women grind peanuts in Tchadoua. These locally farmed peanuts
are the main ingredient of ready-to-use therapeutic food,
which is produced by UNICEF partner Societé
Transformation d’Alimentaire

Some 700 km from the factory, Nana Hassia has reported to her local health centre with her 20-month-old son Hassan, who is recovering from severe acute malnutrition. A health worker carefully weighs and measures the boy. Ms. Hassia is given a week’s supply of the ready-to-use food, which she will use to treat Hassan at home.

 

With five other children to care for, Ms. Hassia says, “It’s a big advantage for me to be able to treat my child from home and not have to keep him at the health centre.”

 

Once home, all she needs to do is to tear open the sachet of paste for Hassan, which he quickly and eagerly devours. The food is given five times a day.

 

The results are nothing short of remarkable. In a matter of days, most children are already gaining weight and strength. “I’m so happy,” says Ms. Hassia, as she feeds Hassan. “I can see my child getting stronger, and soon he will be running.”

 

Supplies when and where they are needed

 

In order for ready-to-use food to be available to mothers like Ms. Hassia when they arrive for their weekly appointments at health centres, it is essential that there be a reliable supply chain of the product – a reason that having a local supplier is so important. “It makes our supply chain much more efficient and easier to manage,” explains UNICEF Niger Supply and Procurement Manager Stephane Arnaud.

 

Before the partnership with STA, UNICEF imported large shipments of the food via the neighbouring port of Lomé, Togo, which would require months of planning. Getting the product from the STA factory to the more than 900 health centres around the Niger is much simpler, says Mr. Arnaud. “Having it locally, I can reduce my costs of warehousing – and it’s also much easier to manage for the shelf life of the product.”

 

Benefit to the local economy

 

The UNICEF–STA partnership has also had a positive impact on the local economy.  The company employs more than 100 people in its manufacturing plant, as well as scores of women at an adjoining facility who inspect and clean the peanuts by hand.  At agricultural markets in the various farming centres around the country, wholesalers can purchase sacks of peanuts directly from farmers. Hundreds of other people are employed as peanut shredders.

 

“I’m really happy and also proud to know that there’s a company here in Niger that is using peanuts to make this special food for children,” says peanut farmer Hassan Nomao.

 

“I’m happy because I know that these peanuts are going to help save a lot of children.”

 

Pour plus visitez www.unicef.org

suivez Unicef sur Twitter

 

The Sahel Food Crisis and #SahelNow

 by Unicef-USA

The lives of 1,000,000 children are at risk right now in the Sahel region in West and Central Africa. Crops have failed. Families have nothing to eat.

We can save them if we act now. Sound the alarm. Share this video. http://youtu.be/zRg9izN6T3s

We can rush food, nutrition and other emergency relief to help children in the region, but we need your help. We have to alert the world about this looming crisis. We need your help to sound the alarm.

Make sure you’re following http://www.facebook.com/UNICEF-USA and http://twitter.com/unicefusa

Mauritanie : 18 jours pour sauver Saada, 16 mois

Par la Croix Rouge Française / ECHO

 

Dans la région mauritanienne du Gorgol, près de la frontière sénégalaise, 13% des enfants de moins de cinq ans souffrent de malnutrition aigüe. Depuis 2007, ECHO finance la Croix Rouge Française et la Croix Rouge Mauritanienne afin d’appuyer le système de santé pour une meilleure prise en charge des cas de malnutrition. 10 500 enfants et ceux qui les accompagnent reçoivent une assistance à travers ce programme. Ici, nous suivons Saada Diallo et sa mère Fatimata qui ont bénéficié de ce programme.

 

 

 

Mauritania: 18 days to save Saada, 16 months

In the Mauritanian region of Gorgol, close to the Senegalese border, 13% of children under five suffer from acute malnutrition. Since 2007, ECHO finances the French Red Cross and Mauritanian Red Crescent to support the health system in taking better care of malnutrition cases. 10,500 children and those accompanying them receive assistance via this programme. We follow Saada Diallo and his mother Fatimata through the course of the programme.

 

Pour plus visitez http://www.croix-rouge.fr/ et http://ec.europa.eu/echo/index_en.htm

 

Suivez la Croix Rouge Française sur Twitter

Suivez ECHO sur Twitter

 

A mother waits in exile to return to her village in Mali

By Hugo Reichenberger / UNHCR / in Mentao Camp, Burkina Faso

Aicha is suffering: she is far from her home in the central Malian district of Mopti and she has caught a pulmonary infection, which is compounded by the harmattan, the dusty trade wind that sweeps from the Sahara to the Atlantic coast from November to March.

The 45-year-old and her four children arrived in Mentao Refugee Camp in north-west Burkina Faso less than two weeks after the start on January 11 of the French military intervention in Mali to push back anti-government militants. At first, the fast-evolving situation in Mali raised hopes that many displaced people would be able to go back to their homes soon. But the reality is that thousands have since fled to neighbouring countries – mainly Burkina Faso and Mauritania – to escape the fighting or from fear of reprisals. They need help.

In Burkina Faso, many of those who have fled across the border are ethnic Tuareg and Arab women and children, like Aicha and her young. Their menfolk are staying behind to take care of their cattle, indicating that people are increasingly fleeing out of desperation. New arrivals are met at the border by mobile teams from UNHCR or its partners, and transported to Mentao or Goudebou refugee camps, where they receive assistance, such as hot meals upon arrival and traditional shelter kits, and are individually registered. More than 6,000 have arrived since the French intervention in January.

Aicha's journey to Mentao was not so straightforward. She had resisted earlier chances to flee from her central Mali village, Boni, despite the deteriorating social and economic situation. She felt she had too much to lose.

 

© UNHCR/H.Reichenberger
Aicha (in green) shelters from the sun with relatives in their shelter in Mentao Camp, Burkina Faso.

 

"We are simple people, all we have is our animals and our friends, nothing else, nothing more," Aicha said of her life. But over the past year, things became even harder as war engulfed the country and rebels took over the north and much of the centre of the country. "Our worst fears have now become reality. We left our animals and our friends. We feel we have only fear, no more life," she said, explaining her situation.

The developments in Mali last year took thousands of farming folk like Aicha and her husband by surprise, although inequality between the sub-Saharan people of the south and the Tuareg and Arabs of the north had led to separatist conflict in 1990 and 2007. Most of Aicha's Arab relatives fled to Burkina Faso or Mauritania soon after the fighting first erupted between government soldiers and Tuareg rebels in January last year.

The victorious Tuareg rebels were followed by militants, who imposed strict Islamic law in areas under their control in the north and centre, including Boni. Aicha was not used to such an austere lifestyle, such as having to wear a veil. "Life was difficult in 2012, but it was bearable," she noted. "I would wake up and prepare food for my children before they went out to look after our livestock. I would spend time with my friends when my husband went to Boni to sell some animals. It was correct."

In January, the fighting swung back to the region as the French-backed Malian army advanced north against the militants. Aicha could hear the sounds of war rumbling closer and decided she must flee to save her children. Other villagers were thinking the same and the men clubbed together to hire a truck to take their wives and children to nearby northern Burkina Faso and then on to Mentao, a camp of 11,000 located about 80 kilometres from the border. Some of the villagers of Boni already had relatives there.

But instead of taking them to Mentao, the drivers duped the group of 20 women and children, leaving them at a village 60kms short of their destination after a long and uncomfortable journey without food and water. Luckily, the locals took pity on the refugees and took them by donkey to Mentao.

In response to the spike in new arrivals, UNHCR staff based in the nearby town of Djibo opened a transit centre where refugees stay for two days in newly erected tents (for up to 500 people) before being moved to the camps. More latrines and bathing facilities were built in the transit centre to cope with the extra population.

Aicha and her group, after being stopped by police near Mentao, were taken by UNHCR protection staff to this transit centre, where they were interviewed and registered. "This is a particularly important time for those in categories regarded as most vulnerable, such as female-headed households, said UNHCR Protection Officer Euphrasie Oubda. "They can tell us about things like health problems and trauma and then we can give them the proper care," either directly or through humanitarian aid partners.

Aicha was then moved to Mentao Camp and her own space, where she receives regular visits from UNHCR community services staff. After a week there she felt safe but missed home. There is a small silver living: her four children will go to school for the first time.

"My oldest son, who is 10, has never been to school: he has been a shepherd most of his life," she told visitors. "Although life in Mentao has been better than I thought, life as a refugee is still not a correct life such as the one I had back home," she added, poignantly.

 

For more go to www.unhcr.org

 

Follow unhcr on twitter