WUNRN
As the donor conference for
Women wash dishes
in the Niger river in
May 15, 2013 - Two things, at least, matter more to Ramata Touré than the
outcome of the donor conference in Brussels on
Wednesday at which representatives of more than 100 countries
will be asked for €2bn ($2.6bn) to help bring peace and development to Mali.
"I need sleeping mats for my
grandchildren," said Touré, 58, who arrived in this town on the banks of
the Niger river after fleeing Gao, 700km to the north, in March last year.
"And I need the rains of June to come because when they do the farmers
will go back to work and Gao's markets and banks will reopen,'' she told a
meeting of about 50 displaced women in a courtyard in Ségou.
They are among more than 500,000 people in central and northern
In January, France sent 4,500 troops
to defeat fighters linked to al-Qaida. But the former colonial power wants most
of its troops out by July. The international community is backing the
deployment of an 11,200-strong UN stabilisation force and pressing for
elections in July. The donors' conference, at which
"I would love to go
home," says Touré, who used to sell second-hand clothes from
The donors' conference will
emphasise the urgent need to reopen schools and state hospitals in the north
and create real economic opportunities in cities such as
Kidal remains occupied by the MNLA (Azawad liberation movement), and the effectiveness
of the new UN force, Minusma, is untested. People don't have
much faith in
Touré says other displaced women
living in Ségou are as filled with trepidation as she is at the thought of
going home. Fatimata Maiga, 32, came from
Care International, with funding from the
UN children's agency, Unicef, hands out basic household kits to
displaced people. They include sleeping mats, buckets, bowls, cooking pots,
water purification tablets and a few utensils. Touré's women's group – Annya,
which means joined by the heart – is one of many started by displaced Malian
women since the beginning of the war.
"When we started, the idea
was simply to make friends and run a tontine [savings bank]. But after
a time the city authorities asked us to represent the displaced women and
children in Ségou. In the absence of displaced persons' camps, and given that
registering as a displaced person is voluntary, we have become an important
link in the humanitarian chain," says Touré.
Meetings are held a couple of
times a week, at which the women exchange news from the north, their political
views and even recipes. Touré says the governor of the Ségou region had begun
handing out grants to people who wanted to go home. "We in Annya are
staying right here for now and not taking any chances. If there are good rains,
some of us may be tempted to go home, at least for a while, to plant the
fields. But the earliest it will be safe in