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UN may intervene after Mali violence

26 October 2012

REUTERS

Regional leaders: the Prime Minister of Mali, Cheick Diarra; the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Burkina Faso, Djibril Bassole; and the Al­gerian Foreign Minister, Mourad Medelci, stand for the national anthem before a meeting in Bamako, Mali, last Friday

Regional leaders: the Prime Minister of Mali, Cheick Diarra; the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Burkina Faso, Djibril Bassole; and the Al­gerian For...

WOMEN are the main victims of violence perpetrated by Islamist groups controlling the north of Mali, a United Nations human-rights official has said. An international military force may be sent to help the Malian government recapture the territory, seized after a coup in March ( News, 13 April), by the end of November.

Representatives of the UN, African Union, and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) met last Friday in the capital, Bamako, to discuss the crisis, after the UN Security Council adopted a resolution that gave ECOWAS 45 days to draw up a plan for international military intervention in the country.

The Council has expressed "grave concern" at the deterioration of the situation in the north of Mali, and condemned the abuses of human rights committed by armed rebels, and other extremist groups. It has said that it is ready to respond to the request of the country's transitional authorities for an international military force to recover occupied regions.

The UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, Ivan Šimonovic, said earlier this month that women's rights had been "seriously curtailed" in the captured territories. The "most disturbing" reports were that Islamist groups were compiling lists of women who had had children out of wedlock, or who were unmarried and pregnant, which "could indicate that these women are at imminent risk of . . . inhuman punishment".

Since the beginning of the conflict in March, rebels have seized two-thirds of Mali. The occupation of the north was initially led by Tuareg rebels, but Mr Šimonovic reported that Islamic groups were now in control, and perpetrating human-rights abuses as a result of the imposition of "a strict interpretation of sharia", including mutilations and stonings.

At the meeting last Friday in Bamako, the UN Deputy Secretary-General, Jan Eliasson, said that any military action "must also support a coherent political strategy for the country's reunification". The transitional authorities should engage in talks with the rebel groups in the north, he said.

On the same day, the World Food Programme warned that 4.6 million people in Mali were at risk of food insecurity, and 560,000 children aged under five were at risk of acute malnutrition.

World Vision has expressed concern about military intervention, and called for reassurance that aid organisations would have "unimpeded access" to those in need.

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