'The blockades are linked to the conflict: They grow as the conflict grows.'
Armed groups in Mali are increasingly deploying siege tactics as a tool of war, targeting ever larger towns and regions, disrupting local economies, and creating major access problems for humanitarian groups that are already facing constraints due to the conflict.
The increase in blockades - which follows the closure of a UN peacekeeping mission that the junta asked to leave last year - is worsening an already fragile humanitarian situation that has leftSeveral aid workers said humanitarian flights needed to bring aid to some blockaded areas have been disrupted because the army is not protecting airstrips that the UN mission, known by its acronym MINUSMA, was previously responsible for.
More recent blockades have targeted towns and roads in the north - where the army has expanded its footprint - and the tactic has been adopted by a coalition of non-jihadist armed groups whose Half a dozen local and international aid workers who spoke to The New Humanitarian cited the desert town of Ménaka, which is the main town in the Ménaka region, as the current place most impacted by a blockade.
"Stocks that existed initially began to decline and dwindle until the city found itself practically suffocated," the aid worker said."If something is not done in the days to come, disaster will befall the community of Ménaka." The Bamako-based aid worker said the blockade would have"a great impact" because Léré is a crossroad town with a large market and hosts the bases of several humanitarian groups that operate in the wider area.
"People got lost on the roads and some were caught," said a resident and business owner from the village of Dinangourou, which suffered a siege in 2021." beat the women, and, in some cases, they even raped them."The aid worker in Ménaka said merchants who traded in the town have made personal efforts to open dialogues with IS-Sahel, while other vendors have tried to negotiate collectively. These efforts have not been successful as of yet, the aid worker said.
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