Konflikten mellem Malis regeringshær og dens vestlige allierede på den ene side og islamistiske militsstyrker på den anden rammer civilbefolkningen i det fattige vestafrikanske Sahelland – som nu i lillebyen Diabaly.
DIABALY, 23 January 2013 (IRIN): Residents of Diabaly in the Ségou region of central Mali, have returned to find their town heavily scarred (arret) from the week of heavy shelling (beskydning) it endured until 21st January.
Diabaly, with a population of 35.000, was briefly captured by Islamist groups on 14 January leading to air strikes by French forces, which officially liberated it one week later. Most Islamists fled on 18 January.
Resident, Mariam Sissoko, was one of the first who had fled the fighting to return.
“I no longer recognize Diabaly. Everywhere you look there are burnt-out cars and tanks, destroyed buildings, the stadium has been completely destroyed, frontless shops have been looted,” she told IRIN.
Shelling (granater) destroyed dozens of homes and shops, as well as the principal school’s four classrooms.
On one side street in the town civilians surveyed the burned-out wreckages of eight rebel pick-up trucks.
The military camp, which the rebels used as a base, is in disarray and littered (oversået) with ammunition, clothes, empty food packages and a few copies of the Koran.
Most of the dead bodies have been cleared from the streets, though one or two remain.
Near the river lay the body of a man, as yet unidentified but thought to be a civilian. It is unknown how many rebels, Malian forces or civilians died in the fighting.
Aminata Kassoge, another resident, told IRIN she knew of at least three people from her neighbourhood who were killed. Some Malian soldiers injured in the fighting are recovering in the hospital in Ségou.
Children play by the river-bed where French and Malian troops who now patrol the streets have parked their armoured cars.
Malian soldiers proudly display boxes of machine gun ammunition and an assortment of hand grenades left behind by the fleeing rebels.
Hard times for the Christian minority
On the other side of the gravel (grus) road is the church where the rebels left their mark, decapitating (halshugge) a statue of the Virgin Mary, smashing religious artefacts and flipping over (vælte) wooden benches.
Local priest Father Daniel is not at home, but his 16-year old daughter, Estelle Kouaté, shows us a room where rebels scribbled Koranic verses on the wall. She fled to a neighbour’s house when the Islamists entered the town.
“They told us we would die together and those who insisted on leaving were non-believers,” she said.
Most of the dozens of families who fled Diabaly – by bicycle, donkey, car or motorbike to neighbouring villages Koroma and Niono or to Ségou, the first major town on the road north from the capital Bamako, have since returned.
Shaken
Læs videre på
http://www.IRINnews.org/Report/97322/People-return-to-battle-scarred-Malian-town-of-Diabaly
