Military Action in Mali will have Humanitarian Cost: ICRC

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Security Council Resolution 2071 requested a detailed plan for an international military intervention in North Mali. Such involvement would most likely be conducted by troops provided by ECOWAS members with the support of Western powers. Yet, Peter Maurer, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), criticizes the fact that "there is a lot of talk on how to 'liberate' the north, how to reconquer the north, but there is little consideration of what the humanitarian impact of whatever scenario would be." The potential humanitarian cost of such military operations would aggravate an already worrying situation in the Sahel by further limiting access for aid workers, threatening food security, and creating more refugees and internally displaced persons and in the region.

November 8, 2012
Reuters

Access for aid workers is already precarious in the north, where 500,000 people - half the remaining population - depend on foreign aid, ICRC President Peter Maurer said.

Military experts from Africa, the United Nations and Europe have drafted plans to recapture northern Mali, which fell to rebels in March after a coup in the capital Bamako led to a power vacuum.

Maurer urged foreign leaders to bear the humanitarian cost in mind as they planned action.

"There is a lot of talk how to 'liberate' the north, how to reconquer the north, but there is little consideration of what the humanitarian impact of whatever scenario would be," Maurer told a news briefing.

"It remains a vulnerable region in terms of food security anyway, it has always been. But compounded with the insecurity of the politics and military planning, this becomes particularly dire and particularly sensitive," he said.

Maurer said that he had discussed the issue during visits to Mali, Niger and at a closed-door session of the African Union's peace and security council in Addis Ababa in October.