A nutrition and mortality survey carried out by Mali’s Ministry of Health and its partners, including UNICEF, found that the rate of global acute malnutrition (GAM) is 13.5 per cent making it a “serious” nutrition situation according to UN classification.

The situation is even more worrying in the Bourem health district, where the rate of GAM is 17 per cent, exceeding the emergency threshold of 15 per cent set by the World Health Organization (WHO).

During the next six months, 22,730 children will be at risk for acute malnutrition, UNICEF warned in a news release.

“The nutrition situation in Gao deserves special attention. Action must be taken now so that children who can be saved are not left to die and so that new cases can be prevented,” David Gressly, the Humanitarian Action Coordinator for Mali, said during a visit to Gao yesterday.

Gao was among the areas affected by the fighting that broke out last year in northern Mali between Government forces and Tuareg rebels, after which radical Islamists seized control of the area. The crisis uprooted hundreds of thousands of civilians and led to a dire humanitarian crisis.

UNICEF pointed out that the high malnutrition rates are explained, in part, by the fact that the survey was conducted in May 2013, at the start of the hunger gap season when food supplies run out.

Also, the spike in malaria during the rainy reason has had an impact on children’s nutritional status. The negative impact of the recent conflict on populations’ financial wherewithal is another factor contributing to the severity of the situation, the agency said.

“The lives of many children are in jeopardy. They need immediate assistance,” said Françoise Ackermans, UNICEF Representative in Mali. “Treating children suffering from severe acute malnutrition is a priority for UNICEF. We are sparing no effort to assist each child suffering from malnutrition,” she added.

This year, more than 108,000 children under age five were admitted to nutrition rehabilitation units around the country with the assistance of the Government, UNICEF and humanitarian partners.

The nutrition survey will be conducted next in Timbuktu, in northern Mali, and is already underway in the south of the country. Results will allow for nutrition trends to be assessed to better evaluate needs and prioritize resource allocation.

UNICEF stated that $80 million is needed to meet nutritional needs throughout the country. To date, only a quarter of this funding has been secured. As of 22 July, the Consolidated Appeal for Mali has mobilized $142 million, 30 per cent of the $476 million sought.

Gao was among the areas affected by the fighting that broke out last year in northern Mali between Government forces and Tuareg rebels, after which radical Islamists seized control of the area. The crisis uprooted hundreds of thousands of civilians and led to a dire humanitarian crisis.

A recent inter-agency mission to Gao, led by UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Mali Aurélien Agbénonci, found that rehabilitating the water supply is imperative to urgently assist the population of some 70,000 people in the city, as is increasing food assistance.

Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told reporters in Geneva that the amount of drinking water available to people has fallen 60 per cent over the past weeks.

There was food distribution ongoing to about a third of the population in Gao, but that covered only part of the needs, according to the mission participants.

“Water is a main issue: some neighbourhoods in Gao did not have water at all due to dysfunctional pumps and lack of electricity,” said Laerke. “Outside of the city, the situation is even worse because the Niger River was the only source of water and there were concerns about cholera outbreaks.”

He said that 22 cases of cholera had been registered in May, and two people had died. No new cases had been reported in the past five days, however, but the risk of cholera remained high.

OCHA has deployed two staff to Gao and is in the process of opening an office. In total, there are more than 100 humanitarian organizations in Mali. The $410 million humanitarian appeal for Mali is 29 per cent funded as of today.

Providing an update on schools in the north, Marixie Mercado of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) told reporters that 42 per cent of schools in Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu are now functional, with 100,000 students being taught by 23,000 teachers. This is mostly in the urban areas since there is still a high level of insecurity in the rural areas, and across the region the lack of infrastructure and logistical resources is still a major constraint.

Mercado added that there is still a major chronic malnutrition crisis across the country, particularly in the south where 90 per cent of the population live.

UNICEF expected that in 2013, some 210,000 children will require life-saving treatment for malnutrition and 450,000 children will also suffer from a less severe, but still debilitating, form of malnutrition.

Meanwhile, the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) said today that with the first round of presidential elections in Mali due on 28 July, consultations were under way between the interim Malian Government and refugee-hosting countries on including refugee populations in the voting. These consultations were expected to be followed by bilateral agreements that would form the basis of the electoral process in each of the main refugee-hosting countries.

“While details of the out-of-country electoral process are still being worked out, UNHCR is ready to facilitate the exercise by refugees of their right to vote,” said UNHCR spokesperson Adrian Edwards.

According to the agency, some 174,000 Malians have found refuge in neighbouring countries since the conflict began in January 2012. Burkina Faso hosts 50,000 refugees, Mauritania 74,000 and Niger 50,000. Smaller groups of Malian refugees are also in Algeria.

“UNHCR supports the voluntary participation of refugees in the elections, although our role will be limited to a strictly humanitarian and non-political one,” Mr. Edwards stated.

In conjunction with refugee-hosting countries and refugees, UNHCR will facilitate space for dialogue on the electoral process, and for registration of voters. It is expected that registration of voters in camps and outside camps will be the responsibility of the Malian electoral commission, who would work with host governments to establish voting lists.

UNHCR has previously facilitated out-of-country voting by refugees in South Sudan in 2011, in Iraq in 2010 and in Afghanistan in 2004.

The three rebel groups – Ansar Dine, the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) – have recruited several hundred children into their forces; carried out executions, floggings, and at least eight amputations as punishment; and systematically destroyed numerous religious shrines of cultural and religious importance.In April 2012, the rebel groups consolidated their control over the northern regions of Kidal, Timbuktu, and Gao.

“The Islamist armed groups have become increasingly repressive as they have tightened their grip over northern Mali,” said Corinne Dufka, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Stonings, amputations, and floggings have become the order of the day in an apparent attempt to force the local population to accept their world view. In imposing their brand of Sharia law, they have also meted out a tragically cruel parody of justice and recruited and armed children as young as 12.”

Since July, Human Rights Watch has conducted 97 interviews in Mali’s capital, Bamako, with witnesses and victims of abuses, as well as others knowledgeable about the human rights situation, including religious and traditional leaders, medical personnel, rights activists, teachers, diplomats, journalists, and government officials. Many witnesses had fled the affected areas; those who remained in rebel-controlled areas were interviewed by telephone. Witnesses described abuses taking place in the northern towns of Gao, Timbuktu, Goundam, Diré, Niafounké, Ansongo, Tissalit, Aguelhoc, and Kidal.

In January, the rebel groups had undertaken a military offensive to gain control of northern Mali, originally alongside separatist ethnic Tuareg group, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA). They have since largely driven the MNLA out of the north.

Ansar Dine aims to impose a strict interpretation of Sharia throughout Mali. AQIM, affiliated with al Qaeda since January 2007, has been implicated in attacks against civilians and kidnaping for ransom of tourists, businessmen, and aid workers, some of whom have been executed. MUJAO, created in late 2011 as a largely Mauritanian offshoot of AQIM, has claimed responsibility for kidnapping several humanitarian workers and, on April 5, seven Algerian diplomats. MUJAO and Ansar Dine have claimed responsibility for many abuses, including killings, amputations, and the destruction of religious shrines and other culturally important structures.

The Islamist groups’ advance took advantage of the political and security chaos that followed a coup in Bamako on March 22 by junior Malian military officers, which reflected their dissatisfaction with the government’s response to the MNLA rebellion. The interim government established in April has since then been dogged by infighting and power struggles, paralyzing their response to the situation in the north.

Ansar Dine, MUJAO, and AQIM appear to be closely coordinating with each other, Human Rights Watch said. While particular groups seem to control particular regions – for example, Ansar Dine in Kidal and Timbuktu and MUJAO in Gao – their forces often move fluidly between areas and have reinforced each other during unrest. Furthermore, several commanders and fighters from MUJAO and Ansar Dine were identified by multiple witnesses as having previously been affiliated with AQIM. Many residents said they reached the conclusion that, in the words of one witness, “Ansar Dine, MUJAO and AQIM are one in the same.” Witnesses said the majority of commanders were non-Malian, and came from Mauritania, Algeria, Western Sahara, Senegal, Tunisia, and Chad.

The Islamist armed groups have carried out beatings, floggings, arbitrary arrests, and executed two local residents, all for engaging in behavior decreed as “haraam”’ (forbidden) under their interpretation of Sharia, dozens of witnesses and five victims from the north told Human Rights Watch. These included smoking or selling cigarettes; consuming or selling alcoholic beverages; listening to music on portable audio devices; having music or anything other than Quranic verse readings as the ringer on cellphones, and failing to attend daily prayers.

On July 30, the Islamist authorities in Aguelhocstoned to death a married man and a woman he was not married to for adultery, reportedly in front of 200 people. Theyalso have punished women for failing to adhere to their dress code – which requires women to cover their heads, wear long skirts, and desist from wearing jewelry or perfume – and for having contact with men other than family members.

Throughout the north, the punishments for these “infractions” as well as for those accused of theft and banditry were meted out by the Islamic Police, often after a summary “trial” before a panel of judges hand-picked by the Islamist authorities. Many of the punishments were carried out in public squares after the authorities had summoned the local population to attend.

Many witnesses described seeing men and women detained or whipped in marketplaces and on the street, often by armed adolescents, for smoking, drinking alcohol, or failing to cover themselves adequately. Some frail elderly residents collapsed from the floggings.

Many residents of Timbuktu, Kidal, and Gao regions told Human Rights Watch that they saw children inside apparent training camps of the Islamist armed groups. They also observed children as young as 11 years manning checkpoints, conducting foot patrols, riding around in patrol vehicles, guarding prisoners, enforcing Sharia law, and cooking for rebel groups. One witness described children being taught to gather intelligence by walking through town and later “having to repeat what they had seen and heard.”

Since April, the Islamist groups have amputated the limbs of at least eight men accused of theft and robbery, seven in the Gao region. Human Rights Watch interviewed the victim of the August 8 hand amputation in Ansongo and two witnesses to the five amputations that took place in Gao on September 10. Amputating the hands, feet, or limbs of an individual as a criminal punishment is torture, in violation of international law.

Islamist militants in Timbuktu have destroyed numerous structures – including mausoleums, cemeteries, and shrines – which hold great religious, historical, and cultural significance to Malians. Timbuktu residents described feeling deeply shaken by the destruction. One woman told Human Rights Watch that, “It only took them about an hour and a half to break apart our heritage, our culture.” A man who witnessed the destruction of the tomb of Sidi Mahmoudsaid, “As they broke the tomb, yelling ‘Allah hu Akbar’ for all to hear, hundreds of us were weeping both inside and out.”

International humanitarian and human rights law prohibits any mistreatment of people in custody, including executions, torture, and pillage. The use of child soldiers and the deliberate destruction of religious and cultural property are also prohibited. Leaders of the rebel groups may be liable under international law for abuses committed by forces under their command, Human Rights Watch said.