A UN official has spent too much on security in Mali and not enough on food aid

While billions of dollars are being spent on security operations in Mali, the UN urgently needs money for humanitarian aid, said the head of an agency of the United Nations. # 39; UN. By CLEMENT SABOURIN (AFP / File)

Mali urgently needs humanitarian aid, more than three million people in need of food and basic badistance even as billions of dollars go to security missions, said a senior official on Thursday. of the UN.

Since January, the UN has received less than one-tenth of the $ 296 million requested from the member countries of Mali for 2019, said Ute Kollies, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). ) for Mali.

At the same time, his calculations showed that "about $ 3 billion a year", or 10 times the requested humanitarian budget, was spent on security missions such as the MINUSMA peacekeeping force and The G5 operation supported by France to fight jihadism in the Sahel region, she told reporters in Geneva.

The international community, said Kollies, "considers Mali a problem of terrorism, of illegal migration, and therefore responds (to invest) in military deployments and to enhance security.

"So there is money, but they still do not consider investing in humanitarian response and action as a stabilizing factor".

The OCHA official called for a better balance of spending, citing the saying that "a hungry man is an angry man".

Feeding people is the first step towards "a situation where mediation is possible and where people can sit around a table and tackle the root causes of the problem," said Mr. Kollies.

Mali has struggled to return to stability since Islamist extremists took control of the north of the country in early 2012, prompting a military intervention by France.

Extremism and lawlessness continue and spread to Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Chad and Niger. Thousands of people have been displaced in the interior of the country.

Kollies said the number of Malians in need of food badistance is expected to reach 3.8 million during the "lean season" just before harvest. About 1.4 million people need health care.

"Our humanitarian response plan for this year has defined 3.2 million people in need of badistance," Kollies said. "We have seen a three- or four-fold increase in the number of internally displaced people during the year."