By Ebi Kesiena
Save the Children has disclosed that more than 140,000 people in the Malian town of Menaka, including 80,000 children, face malnutrition and disease due to a blockade by Islamic State-linked insurgents.
The organization warned that the months-long blockade has driven supplies to alarmingly low levels as aid agencies and Malian government programs struggle to deliver basic necessities.
In a statement, Save the Children said that unless aid gets to the Menaka communities soon, the area could see many deaths in coming months.
According to the London-based organization, some of its workers who went to assess the population’s needs had been trapped for more than three weeks.
The blockade in Menaka follows a siege in Timbuktu that began last August and has trapped more than 136,000 people, 74,000 of them children.
David Otto, a Nigerian-based security analyst noted that the lack of government presence in northern Mali is complicating aid efforts.
‘‘In Timbuktu, however, some aid supplies are able to reach people in need.
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“Humanitarian activities within that region also have been very, very much limited, not just due to insecurity, which is one of the main factors, but also due to the fact that the regime or the military government has limited access to that region for humanitarian organizations on the basis of jihadist groups.” He said.
Mali’s military junta recently launched a joint operation with the military governments in Burkina Faso and Niger to fight jihadist and insurgent groups that have destabilized parts of West Africa.
The junta says it sees the operations as one way of easing the suffering of its people in the hands of armed groups.
However, the government has been unable to break the sieges of either Menaka or Timbuktu.
Meanwhile, the government has ordered the UN mission in Mali to close its offices and end the support it was providing to the population.
