Sunday, June 17, 2012

The kids of Timbuktu

6:17 pm | Edit Post

Bintou first arrived at one of the refugee camps in northern Burkina mid February, one of thousands who had fled the legendry town of Timbuktu in the north of Mali due increased tensions between rebel forces and government troops. As we wandered around one of the camps at Mintaw back in February it was clear that she was well educated and she gave the impression that she possessed bright and confident qualities.

Four months later, on visiting the camp, it was hard to believe she was the same person.  Although these Touaregs have found refuge in Burkina and the international community's support is now underway, life in a refugee camp is far from home and the numbers in the Mintaw camps have now swollen to an incredible eight thousand and there are said to be over 60,000 refugees in the Djibo area alone.   As I chatted to Bintou last weekend it was evident that life under the baking sahelian sun with nothing to do had not only removed the smile from her face but left her in a state of despondency.   
A number of the teenagers, along with Bintou, had wanted to set up classes for the hundreds of children, who also find themselves victims of the unrest, in order that their level of education would not drop to the point of leaving them disadvantaged in future years.  However, without funding this is near impossible to accomplish as the NGOs find themselves stretched to the limit and their main concern is to keep people watered and fed.  Education, as it stand, remains out of reach until the troubles in Mali end -- which does not look like this will happen any time soon. 

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