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By AFP
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A herd of goats in the stony front yard of the Konna's local government offices – a town abandoned by the state and its security forces, like many others in central Mali
The missionaries (MINUSMA) jokes: "The only residents have fled now."
Sent from the regional capital, Mopti, the MINUSMA police want to ask an vote of the presidential vote.
But as the weekly market bustles, attracting people from villages miles away, there is no one in the white prefecture
covered with documents, a Malian flag is the only proof there is a state in the town of 16,000.
Near the statue that stands at the entrance of the town – a tribute to the first jihadists, which started in Konna – the bra nd new police station still has no staff.
Last year, Mopti, some 70 kilometers (45 miles) away, depending on deputy mayor Yaya Traore.
"The police officers who came here said they were leaving, but that soon we would have a new team here, at the station, "he said.
The new officers are coming in, leaving the town in the hands of the Konna squad surveillance, "which was set up in 2016 to fight crime."
"We set it up all by ourselves with the youngsters," said Traore, who is on the board of the squad of 486 people.
"They are the ones who go everywhere, if there 's a problem they will solve it," he says as his radio crackles.
They patrol from midnight to 5:00 am, forbidding any road traffic with few exceptions, the deputy mayor
"During the day, we have a team called 'Delta Force'."
When suspects are arrested, they are resident at the community center in the Mopti
Residents chip in every month. Yellow jackets, radios and sticks, butchers, tailors, shopkeepers and artisans.
"We have 30 walkie-talkies that were felt by a Malian in Congo," the squad's president, Mahamane Kebe, told AFP in front of his tailoring shop.
"Right now, some of our men at the market to ensure its security," he added.
Aminata Tounkara, her head covered with a yellow veil and a tattoo on her bottom lip, Kodaga, more west.
The mother-of-three will not be able to vote on July 29: "I don 't have an identity card, so I can not get my vote card, "she says, a baby strapped to her back.
Electoral law says biometric vote cards, delivered individually on proof of identity, will be mandatory in the upcoming poll Unilever permits for the use of identity cards.
In a school in Konna, the otherwise-absent state police h
Sat at a table, to vote sifts through a stack – his and those of a dozen of his family members.
"Usually we are not allowed to pick up the cards for someone else, but with the insecurity, not everyone in the village can move around," a polling station official told AFP .
"We are Konna, "Yaya Traore said."
"But in the villages around here, no one will go out to vote," because of safety concerns, he added.
Regardless of the election, some security measures such as the motorbikes and pick-ups in much of the region, make residents day-to-day lives difficult
"I use my motorcycle to take care of my family's needs , "said Mahama Karabenta, a Bozo fisherman from Youwarou, northwest of Konna, before riding back with the millet at the market for his family of 16.
"The best thing would be for Mali to solve its problem, so that people can move about freely."
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