Conflict in Mali

North Mali prepares for war as refugees dream of liberation from al-Qaida

Displaced Malians fear for the future as divisions deepen and more citizens pick up arms to defend their homeland

the Guardian

31 October, 2012

Until violence erupted in northern Mali, the Hotel Via Via had been on the verge of expansion, scooping up tourists and business travellers who not long ago congregated in Mopti – a bustling gateway between the north and south, surrounded by the water of the Niger and Bani rivers. Since al-Qaida-linked groups seized control of large swaths of the north of the country, leaving Mopti on the frontline between the government-controlled south and the Islamist-controlled north, outside visitors have vanished, and so have the expansion plans. Instead, the hotel's half-built wings provide a discreet location for the Ganda Koya, a militia whose name means "son of the nation" in the local Sonrai language.

As dusk settled over the hotel, a group of the militia scuttled between the building and a makeshift camp across the road where many rent cheap accommodation. One of them, Fatou Sissiko – a pretty, 18-year-old girl wearing a low-cut sleeveless vest and African print skirt – held a friend's baby girl on her arm as she talked quietly and reluctantly about the atrocities she witnessed in her home town, Gao, after it was taken over by the Islamist group the Movement for Tawhid and Jihad in West Africa (Mujao) in March.

"I left Gao because I want to fight to liberate the city," she said. "I hated living under the Mujao. They are dangerous people, they don't fear death. They killed many innocent people, I saw it with my own eyes. They destroyed my school. Our parents send us money so that we can stay in Mopti and learn to fight – they support what we are doing."

Sissiko is one of thousands of young people who have grown frustrated at the failure of the Mali government – which was toppled by a coup on 22 March and has been replaced by a widely despised interim regime – to protect its citizens in the north.

Despite a United Nations security council resolution earlier this month opening the door to military intervention to end al-Qaida's hold over the northern region, residents have continued to flee.

An estimated 35,000 internally displaced people, of whom 10,000 are living in official camps, have arrived in the Mopti region alone since the government lost control of northern Mali, one security source told the Guardian.

Many, like Sissiko, have joined militias, prompting fears that the ranks of independent trained and armed northerners could create further problems for the country.

Military action – which an official source insists is being pursued alongside the possibility of negotiations – is likely to begin in the new year. But civilian authorities in Mopti are already gearing up for war in the north, and are preparing emergency plans to merge the police, gendarmerie, national guard and emergency services.

"Militia members are in their thousands, and their numbers are multiplying," said the source. "I fear the impact of their existence on the country – they are regional and ethnocentric organisations that can only further divide Mali.

"If people want to liberate the north they should integrate into the national forces, otherwise it risks creating a whole new problem when this war is over."

Despite reports that the ranks of the Islamist groups – Mujao in Gao, Ansar Dine in Kidal, and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb in Timbuktu – are filled by insurgents from neighbouring Algeria and Mauritania, people from those towns say that their numbers have been bolstered by Malians who have joined the groups as a means of survival.

In a refugee camp next door to the Via Via, a slender man wearing overalls sits slumped against the wall on a low bench. The makeshift camp is another abandoned hotel, this one built as cheap overnight accommodation for the drivers who once accompanied their affluent employers on visits to Mopti. The long, single-storey buildings are crowded with scores of half-dressed children, women pounding food for the evening meal, and tents bearing the Swiss Red Cross logo.

Oumar Cissé, 42, was a motorbike mechanic in Douanza – a town in the Mopti region currently controlled by the Mujao – when Islamists, including people he grew up with, began terrorising the local people.

"Ordinary people I have known all my life, who I used to sit down and drink tea with, joined the Islamists and killed their own neighbours," said Cissé. "I cannot join them – I just want to live a normal life and educate my children. I fled here with my two wives and 11 children."

Cissé, a Bella – the ethnic name used for black Tuaregs – said conditions in the camp were almost unbearable. He is one of the minority of internally displaced people living in official government accommodation, which he said was heavily overcrowded.

"Now my sisters, who are teachers, have also joined us [in Mopti] because the Mujao have closed all the schools in Douanza – they don't believe in western education. During the rainy season we were 15 people sleeping in one room. We had to take it in turns to stand up at night."

The refugees said they welcomed plans for a military intervention to reclaim the north, currently being drawn up in the capital city, Bamako, by the Mali government, the Economic Community of West African States and the African Union, with other international support from the European Union and the US.

"I am a simple man, I don't know about the details of who should do what; all I know is that I want to go home and return to my normal life, and if we do not have outside help this is not going to happen," said Cissé.

A security source, who asked not to be named, said that there were concerns that Mopti – only 30 miles (50km) from the region where al-Qaida-linked groups have held power since March – would be destabilised by the absence of the armed forces, which have a major base in the city. There are also fears that Islamist sleeper cells in Mopti and other southern cities have the capability to launch terrorist attacks.