Bombs and bullets prioritised over people

WHEN Irish soldiers arrived in troubled Mali last week as part of an EU training force, they will have encountered a country where the security situation remains tense and a year-long conflict has had a catastrophic humanitarian impact on the population.

It’s now just over 12 months since the Malian government was overthrown in a military coup led by disaffected soldiers unhappy with their leader’s inability to counter rebels who had seized the north of the country. However, rather than stopping the rebels’ march, the coup enabled the insurgents, many of them linked with al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), to tighten their grip on northern Mali, taking the historic city of Timbuktu as they advanced south towards the capital Bamako.

This development prompted France to send in soldiers and carry out air strikes, citing concerns that an Islamist domination of northern Mali could act as a base for attacks on the West.