Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)* — The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) called on Friday [14 January 2022] for concerted international action to end armed conflict in Africa’s central Sahel region, which has forced more than 2.5 million people to flee their homes in the last decade.

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An internally displaced woman prepares food for her family in Burkina Faso.
© UNHCR/Nana Kofi Acquah | An internally displaced woman prepares food for her family in Burkina Faso.

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Speaking to journalists in Geneva, the agency’s spokesperson, Boris Cheshirkov, informed that internal displacement has increased tenfold since 2013, going from 217,000 to a staggering 2.1 million by late last year.

The number of refugees in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger now stands at 410,000, and the majority comes from Mali, where major civil conflict erupted in 2012, leading to a failed coup and an on-going extremist insurgency.

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