Bamako/Paris, 23 February 2012 – Yesterday afternoon, 22 February, a camp of Tuareg civilians was targeted in an airstrike by the Malian army in the north of the country.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams and the Malian Ministry of Health in the area treated 11 injured people. Those hurt were almost exclusively women and children, including a young girl who died from her injuries.
The camp, Ag Haross Kayone, is located about 20 km from Kidal. Around 20 families from the city were living there, having fled conflict between the Malian army and the MNLA, a Tuareg rebel movement. The conflict has been going on for more than a month.
Around 4 pm the camp was hit by shots fired from a helicopter. Eleven people were wounded, three of them gravely. Nine of them were women and children.
MSF teams and the Malian Ministry of Health provided emergency care and transferred two of the injured people to the hospital in Kidal.
“We’re asking all parties to the conflict to exercise restraint in the use of violence and to distinguish between combatants and civilians,” says Michel Olivier Lacharité, MSF Programme Manager for Mali.
MSF teams are present in the north of Mali and have been offering primary healthcare for the past week to people displaced by fighting.
The organisation has been working in the Sikasso region in the south of the country since 2009. In 2011, MSF treated more than 85,000 children through its pediatric and nutritional activities there.