October 25

• Mali: How Effective Was the Food Crisis Response?

  Sahelians are used to living on the edge and doing all they can to overcome adversity. In 2011, the combined shocks of ongoing high food prices, an end to remittances from Libya,... Read more »

October 19

• Mali: New Hope in Fight Against Malaria

  A pioneering malaria prevention method trialled in Mali is dramatically reducing seasonal malaria among children, according to a mass pilot launched by NGO Médecins Sans... Read more »

• Mali: Islamists Lure Back Northerners

  Hundreds of displaced northerners in southern Mali are risking life under Sharia law to return home, lured by the prospect of jobs, free water and electricity, and in some parts,... Read more »

October 9

• Mali: Children Take Up Guns

  Children as young as 14 are joining military training camps run by militias in southern Mali preparing to fight Islamist groups in the north. At the same time, Islamist groups in... Read more »

October 5

• Mali: Northerners Fight to Learn

  Teachers, the Ministry of Education and aid agencies are scrambling to provide catch-up classes to thousands of displaced children who fled northern Mali for southern towns to help... Read more »

October 4

• Mali: 'We Cannot Live Under the Law of Strangers'

  The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates some 107,000 Malians, most of them Arabs and Tuaregs, fled across the border to Burkina Faso, many leaving as early as February when the... Read more »

October 3

• Mali: Towards Intervention in Mali [analysis]

  After weeks of shuttle diplomacy, speculation and contradictory signals, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) now looks to have the backing of the Malian... Read more »

September 24

• Mali: Struggling to Deliver Aid to Rebel-Held North

  Sparse rainfall in 2011 triggered food alerts for Mali which went out well before the start of the rebellion in the north in January, and the coup d'état in Bamako in March.... Read more »

September 20

• West Africa: Stability Vital to Region

  More than a year after civil unrest broke out in Burkina Faso, observers and analysts say despite some progress, and sustained support for President Blaise Compaoré, tension... Read more »

August 17

• Mali: Rain but Too Few Seeds

  It is raining in Mopti Region in central Mali and most of the fields are filled with millet and rice seedlings, turning the usually dusty landscape a vivid green. But interspersed... Read more »

August 14

• Mali: Food for Refugees Will Run Out in September

  Agencies cannot cope with the scale of refugee needs in camps across Mali, as their funding shortfalls are too great: 36 percent at the World Food Programme (WFP) 66 percent in UN... Read more »

August 10

• Mali: Malnutrition - Worrying in North, Rising in South

  At Koutiala reference hospital in the Sikasso region of southeastern Mali, 300 children are crammed into one room, most of them attached to drips while they receive blood... Read more »

August 9

• Mali: Some Parties Open to Talks

  Iyad Ag Ghali, Secretary-General of the Al Qaeda-affiliated Ansar Dine, one of the Islamist groups in control of northern Mali, met with Burkina Faso's foreign affairs minister,... Read more »

August 8

• Mali: Not a Fragile State, Yet

  Drissa Keita, 42, fled south to Bamako, the capital of Mail, with 18 family members when Islamist extremists overran Gao in the northeast in early April. Once a civil servant, he... Read more »

August 4

• Mali: Pastoralism - Between Resilience and Survival [analysis]

  Hundreds of pastoralists in the Mopti Region of central Mali are stuck between floodplains to the south and armed Islamists and rebels to the north. They are used to the hardship... Read more »

July 30

• Mauritania: UN Short of Money to Help Mali Refugees

  The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) says it is "woefully underfunded" to help Malians fleeing fighting who have sought refuge across the border in Mauritania's M'bera camp, and other... Read more »

July 24

• Mali: Mali-Niger - Locusts Spawning Disaster

  Swarms of locusts encouraged by early rains are breeding in the north of Mali and Niger, bringing a second generation of insects that could increase 250 fold by the end of this... Read more »

July 11

• Mali: Peacemakers Grapple With Complex Crisis

  After a military coup toppled president Amadou Toumani Touré and rebels took control of northern Mali, regional negotiators are now grappling with a complex political and... Read more »

July 3

• Mali: Thousands Swell Mauritanian Refugee Camp

  M'bera, a refugee camp in scrubland on the border with Mali, came into being just five months ago; it is now Mauritania's fourth largest town, prompting (at least superficial)... Read more »

June 27

• Mali: Locusts Could Spread in Rebel-Held North

  Clouds of desert locusts have arrived in rebel-held northern Mali, where insecurity has hampered pest control, bringing fears that the insects may devastate a country already... Read more »

June 22

• Mali: Students Flee Sharia in Northern Schools

  Strict Sharia, or Islamic religious laws, imposed by the Islamist rebels controlling vast swathes of northern Mali are driving thousands of students out of schools. Dress codes... Read more »

June 21

• Mali: Intervention Options in Northern Mali

  The African Union (AU) and ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) have been taking a dual-track approach in Mali in recent weeks - diplomatic negotiations with the... Read more »

May 31

• Mali: Tuareg Separatists, Salafists Forge Alliance

  Two months after taking the northern strongholds of Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal, Mali's rival rebel movements have supposedly put aside ideological, religious and cultural differences... Read more »

• West Africa: Peace Making Role of West African Trade Bloc [analysis]

  With a string of political crises in West Africa over the past few months it has been a busy time for mediators of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which has... Read more »

May 4

• West Africa: Aid Efforts Under Strain As Refugees Numbers Mount

  Sahelian governments and local and international aid groups are struggling to cope with both the continual arrivals of people fleeing the regions of Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal in... Read more »