After months of struggling to get by and not knowing where the next meal would come from, Maimouna Cisse has finally received some respite from the hunger that’s blighting Mali.

‘Today is a great day and our thanks go to those who’ve remembered the poor and needy,’ she says, after being supplied with 50kg of rice from Tearfund partner TNT.

Maimouna is a mother-of-seven who lives in the town of Gao, which has been in the frontline of Mali’s ongoing conflict between Islamic groups and Malian forces.

A 300 km au Nord-Est de Kidal et à quelques pas de la frontière algérienne, le village de Tinzawatène fait face depuis plusieurs jours à un afflux constant de familles déplacées. Les équipes de Médecins du Monde ont ouvert un poste de santé afin d’apporter une assistance médicale et nutritionnelle aux centaines de familles qui arrivent sur le site dans un état de dénuement avancé.

A military offensive in northern Mali would have serious humanitarian consequences and requires serious safeguards to be put in place, warns a coalition of ten non-governmental organisations. As the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution to authorise an international military force to restore territorial integrity, humanitarian NGOs operating in Mali have come together to sound a note of caution

MATIN

28 septembre 2012

Il adopte également des résolutions sur les personnes âgées et sur les autochtones

Le Conseil des droits de l'homme a adopté, ce matin, six résolutions, portant notamment sur la situation des droits de l'homme en République arabe syrienne et au Mali, ainsi que sur l'assistance technique dans le domaine des droits de l'homme au Soudan et au Soudan du Sud. Deux autres résolutions portent respectivement sur les droits de l'homme des personnes âgées et les droits de l'homme et les peuples autochtones.

“I don’t know how old I am – I know I was born around the time of independence in 1960. I suppose that would make me about 50 years old.”

Fatuma is sitting on the dried-out mud floor of her home in Diema, southern Mali.

Her face is lit up by the bright sunlight pouring through the straw walls.

Knowledge and tradition

So often the elderly are forgotten in crises – yet older people play crucial roles in communities facing disaster.

Many grandparents care for children and often continue to support the family’s income in their old age.

Scores of people across the Sahel remain in grave danger as the ongoing food crisis unfolds, but where there is support there is hope.

More than 18 million people are in danger across nine West African countries including Burkina Faso, Gambia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Chad, northern Nigeria and northern Cameroon.

Mali - USAID et le Fonds central des Nations Unies pour les interventions d’urgence (CERF) ont décidé de donner 774 000 et 70 000 dollars respectivement, pour aider l’OIM à fournir une aide d’urgence à quelque 25 000 Maliens vulnérables déplacés par le conflit au nord du pays.

By Sarah Oughton in Mali

Kadiatou Konnare is facing a more daunting struggle to feed her seven children than most people will ever know.

She is a widow, with no land to grow her own food, and she lives in Sakabala – a rural village in the Sahel region of Mali that has been badly hit by a food crisis.

“I help other people pound their millet and they give me the ‘son’ which is the leftovers after the millet has been ground – it’s usually used to feed animals but the last harvest was so bad for everyone in the village and there’s so little to eat,” Kadiatou says.

I recently returned from Niger and Mauritania, in Africa’s Sahel region, assessing nutrition-focused humanitarian assistance. This was not my first trip to the region, as I was also there with USAID in 2010 when a failed harvest and poor pasture conditions led to food insecurity conditions nationwide and a significant rise in acute malnutrition among young children. This year, without much time for families and communities to recover and restore livelihoods, we are again facing a humanitarian crisis.