Mali: civilians increasingly affected by explosive devices
Audio 02:23
Children are said to be particularly vulnerable to improvised explosive devices.
Here in Gao, in 2013 (illustration).
AFP - JOEL SAGET
By: Manon Laplace Follow
6 mins
Since the start of the conflict in 2012, improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and landmines have posed a growing threat in Mali.
For the military, but also for civilians who use the same roads or tracks, mined without distinction of target.
A threat that affects the daily lives of populations in northern and central Mali, in the grip of conflict, and which descends towards the south.
Publicity
From our correspondent in Bamako,
Improvised football game for Oumar, Boubacar and Soufi.
The scene would seem almost ordinary in the Malian capital, if it were not for the leg prostheses with which the three Malians are equipped.
“
We jumped on a mine, I lost my left leg
,” Oumar explains.
Since his accident, Oumar Coulibaly, a soldier, has made it his mission to bring victims of explosive devices back to healthcare facilities. There are many civilians there, including Fatoumata Traoré. In a corner of the Father Bernard Verspieren Center in Bamako, she waits for her prosthesis to be adjusted. She too lost her leg while visiting her brother in Gao in the north of the country. It was in 2016.
“
Coming from Gao, our bus went up on a mine which destroyed it.
Some people died, I was hurt.
My leg was cut off.
By the grace of God I was able to be treated, I was put on a prosthesis to walk.
At that time, she was unaware of the dangers of mines.
“
But now,
” she says, “
everyone is afraid.
"
Today, it is Ibrahim Traoré who takes care of her.
From this center in Bamako, the orthoprosthetist regularly receives civilians, victims of explosive devices.
“
Since the beginning of the security crisis, we have noticed that more and more civilians are victims of mines.
These are civilians who are usually affected in their daily activities.
"
Particularly vulnerable children
In addition to threatening their lives, these explosive devices constrain their livelihoods, such as transporting livestock, water or certain commercial activities.
Since the end of 2017, the increase in incidents related to improvised explosive devices has led to an increase in civilian casualties.
Children would be particularly vulnerable, explains Luc Adam Sambou, disarmament coordinator at the Danish Refugee Council, which has set up a support program for victims.
"
Children are particularly exposed to the danger of explosive devices placed on the tracks, which these children also use for reasons of subsistence, for example going to lead the herd to pasture, to go in search of wood, water ...
"
The young Boubacar, soccer jersey on his back and ball on his foot, lost his leg when he left the market.
“
We were in a car.
As we passed, we were hit by a mine.
I wanted to become an apprentice driver.
"
Among civilians, those displaced by the conflict are most at risk.
In 2020, the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) recorded 170 incidents related to explosive devices.
Of the 76 killed and 287 injured, 49% were civilians.
And in the first six months of 2021, 54 people were killed and 184 injured by explosive devices, nearly a third of them civilians, according to the UN.
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