In August, floods loosened the dry caked Sahelian earth in Gao, northern Mali, affecting more than 1,000 people, many of whom temporarily took refuge in area schools.

The European Union (EU) has opened its first multi-million dollar immigration centre in West Africa, but returnee migrants told IRIN the Bamako centre would not change their minds about migrating without visas.

At least 300 women are victims of sexual violence every year in Bamako, according to local police records, but the actual figure is much higher said the president of the Bamako-based non-profit, Women in Law and Development in Africa.

Analysts say despite the government's efforts to secure the north through its clampdown of a militia accused of masterminding recent Tuareg killings, lasting peace is still elusive in the north because of restive ex-fighters, extreme Sahelian poverty, and drug trafficking.

On 20 September 2008, Sidiki Doumba, journalist with "Les Echos", a Bamako-based independent newspaper was arrested and detained overnight at a police station in Kita, a town 15 kilometres from the capital.

A woman who was denied asylum in the U.S. despite her fears that she would suffer additional female genital mutilation if she was deported to her native Mali has been given a second chance.