Analyse: Mali er ikke en skrøbelig stat – endnu, men….

Once a civil servant, he now lives eight to a room in his brother’s house, without electricity. “Conditions are very difficult… I want to return – all of my children were born in Gao – but we cannot go back [while it is] under the current regime.”

Thousands of families in Bamako and other cities are facing the same challenge: how to accommodate and care for dozens of extra relatives, mostly children, when they are already struggling to cope with high food prices and too little income.

Conflict across the north has displaced some 70.000 Malians, who are now mainly living in Bamako and Mopti, an inland port on the Niger River in central Mali.

The Sahelian country is being squeezed on economic, political and military fronts. “We are fighting a lot of fires at once here,” said Information Minister Hamadoun Touré.

With formal sector unemployment at 30 percent in good times, investment in the mining sector down, the bulk of multilateral and bilateral development aid suspended, and zero tourism activity, the West african nation could be on its way to a “complete economic standstill”, said one seasoned Malian development worker.

Incidents of violent crime in the capital have increased, say the residents of several neighbourhoods; poverty rates are thought to be rising, a government official notes; and nutrition analyses – to be confirmed – indicate that urban malnutrition is higher than in 2011.

This is the climate in which a government in disarray (forvirring/uorden) and its dangerously weakened army must confront the takeover of its northern territories by Islamic extremists, Tuareg rebel groups and criminals, during a food crisis that has thrown four million people into hunger.

“Mali is not a fragile state yet, but things could deteriorate (forværres). The economy is down. Outsiders… do not necessarily understand the situations in the north and south. Long-term investors will pull out – urgent action is needed,” a Western diplomat told IRIN.

A Mali researcher at the International Crisis Group said, “We are looking for immediate measures to stop state collapse.”

Aid