Bamako, April 28, 2020 – A fire on Tuesday destroyed much of the main camp for displaced people in Bamako, where more than 1,000 people who fled the violence in central Mali have found refuge, an AFP journalist said. No report on casualties was immediately available but damage to the “Faladie” camp considerable with makeshift huts, installed on a landfill in the south of the Malian capital, reduced to ashes.
The site was cloaked in an imposing white cloud while the embers were still glowing in the alleys of the camp. “People set fire to waste to burn it and with the strong wind today everything caught fire at the end of the morning, it is a disaster,” said Ibrahim Maiga, a displaced survivor of the fire.
According to humanitarian workers, the camp houses more than a thousand people, most members of the Fulani ethnic group from central Mali who were chased out of their homes by a cycle of jihadist and intercommunity violence.
