EU warns of disaster in northern Mali

Talks on how to improve security and prevent humanitarian crisis.

The EU is considering how to help African efforts to bring security to northern Mali, amid warnings from the European Commission’s humanitarian-aid department of an imminent and “major” disaster unless security improves.

The Sahel region as a whole is suffering from a food crisis that has affected millions, but the situation in Mali has been exacerbated since January by a conflict between the Malian army and rebels, allied with Islamist militant groups. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced.

Kristalina Georgieva, the European commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis response, warned yesterday (11 April) of a “major humanitarian disaster” in Mali and beyond unless it becomes possible to deliver food and medicines to northern Mali “in the coming days”.

The EU released an additional €9 million in funding to help the estimated 1.4 million Malians believed to need food aid.

The European External Action Service (EEAS) said yesterday that the EU has started the planning process for a civilian mission to support security efforts in the Sahel region. The operational focus would, however, be in Niger, not Mali. It said the EU is now considering whether to provide “other support” to an African Union-led security mission proposed by Ecowas, a grouping of 16 west African states.  It did not elaborate. France has said that it would be prepared to offer logistical support, but not troops.

Military coup

The challenge is compounded by a political crisis that led on 21 March to a short-lived coup.

Under economic and political pressure from the international community, led by the Ecowas, the coup leaders agreed to hand power over to an interim administration. The parliamentary speaker, Dioncounda Traoré, will be sworn in as interim president today (12 April), after which he will have 40 days in which to organise elections.

The EEAS said that it would be willing to send an observer mission to the election, if invited by the Malian authorities and if the EU’s member states agreed to fund it.

It said that it was too early to say if and when development aid would be unfrozen. In a measure intended to end the coup, the EU on 29 March suspended its aid programme, which is worth €583 million for the 2008-13 period. The EEAS said that EU officials in Mali are currently discussing the terms on which aid might be unfrozen. One condition would be the release of former ministers from prison, it said.

Correction: This article originally stated that the EU “has already agreed” rather than is in the process of planing a civilian mission.

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