Refugees from the Syrian war have swelled to about 664,000 since the uprising began in 2011 while some 147,000 persons have become refugees from Mali since the crisis started in 2012, the UN Refugee Agency estimated today.
The outflow from Mali has increased in recent days and could turn into a huge and costly long-term problem like in Syria as the French-led war in Mali drags into the future. It is unlikely to end soon since France and its coalition partners are fighting cunning, well-armed and battle-hardened Islamist invaders mostly from Libya who want to obtain a safe command and control haven in Mali. Already, some 230,000 people have also been displaced within the country.
In contrast, the Syrian war is internecine and free from foreign coalition soldiers. But it is much bloodier having killed over 100,000 people so far and displaced over 2 million people within the country.
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported that over 90 percent of the Syrian refugees fled in 2012 and providing care for them under a multi-partner program could cost about $1.1 billion in 2013. Only 18 percent of those funds have been provided so far. The cost of caring for the Mali refugees is also likely to rise sharply since the host countries, Burkina Faso, Niger and Mauritania, are very poor. However, the agency has as yet asked for only about $112 million for them this year.
Elsewhere in the new South Sudan Unity State, the refugee population could swell by 60,000 in coming months adding to the 61,000 already in a very large camp there. The refugee agency is planning to open a second camp to prepare for the new comers currently arriving at a rate of about 300 a day.
Serious and expensive problems of hygiene and health arise in South Sudan during the six-month rainy season when getting supplies into the existing camp at Yida becomes very difficult. Because of the perilous situation, relief supplies include not just food and medicines but also buckets and plastic sheets. In 2012, the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) and UNHCR had to use very costly airlifts to deliver thousands of tons of such essential relief items.
The sheer vulnerability and dependence of refugees is profoundly disturbing. For instance, a UNHCR analysis of Syrian refugees reveals that over half are children, including 39 percent below the age of eleven, and one in five households is headed by a female probably because the men are either dead or fighting in Syria.
In Burkina Faso, vehicles are going back and forth at the border to collect refugees from Mali who can no longer walk. This also happens at other borders, depending on the security situation for the UN vehicles.
Newly arrived Mali refugees tell UNHCR they fled because of air strikes and fighting as well as fears over the application of Islamist Sharia law. Many are leaving because of food and other shortages since traditional markets are unable to operate. Lack of cereal is pushing breeders to poverty because they have to sell some of their animals or kill them as they have nothing else to eat.
Some Mali refugees manage to travel by car or truck but most flee on foot or by donkey. Numbers should rise quickly since many newly arrived refugees are expecting additional family members to join them soon.
The causes of conflict are different in Syria, Mali and South Sudan but the painful trajectory of refugees and internally displaced people is similar. In Syria, people are fleeing because of an armed resistance movement trying to overthrow a dictator who is using aircraft and tanks against his own people.
In Mali, mostly foreign criminals and Islamic zealots have invaded the North, a territory as big as Texas. They want to obtain a safe trampoline for their version of Islamic government that oppresses women, whips law-breakers and cuts off the hands of thieves.
In South Sudan, bandits and lawless tribes continue to raid villages and small communities to kindle a decades-long conflict, thought to have ended through UN-sponsored peace agreements in 2011 and 2012.
One common result of the three disparate conflicts is to force helpless villagers to abandon their homes and head for very precarious and unsanitary refugee camps. There, they languish on foreign charity eating basic food and using plastic sheets and tents for shelter against blistering summer heat and freezing winter nights.
graphic via shutterstock.com