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.