Update on the rise in violence in Douentza, central Mali, and MSF's response

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is treating people injured in attacks in central Mali

Central Mali

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) teams treated eight people who were seriously injured in attacks on the villages of Bounty and Kikara, in central Mali, on Sunday 3 January 2021.

After being informed by local residents that there were injured people in need of urgent medical care, MSF supported the local authorities by sending two vehicles to transport the injured to the Douentza referral health centre.

Eight people were treated at the Douentza referral health centre. The patients had gunshot wounds and injuries due to the explosions.

"The region of central Mali has become the deadliest in the country for the civilian population," said Juan Carlos Cano, MSF’s Mali Country Representative. "This latest deterioration of the security situation is further complicating the already extremely limited access that thousands of Malians have to essential medical care.

Since 2017, MSF has been working in Douentza supporting departments of the referral health centre, such as emergency care, paediatrics, neonatology, emergency surgery and internal medicine. MSF also ensures the referral of patients from the community health centres to the referral health centre in Douentza, as well as transferring the most complicated cases to the hospital in Sévaré. MSF supports three community health centres in the districts of Boni, Hombori and Mondoro.

In central Mali, children play in a street, near the spot where MSF is treating sick refugees. Most of them are women and children who have fled the armed violence. Generally speaking, in these conflicts, men are more likely to be targeted by the attackers. Photographer: Mohamed Dayfour
An elderly man receives a consultation at MSF’s medical facility in central Mali, where people fled in search of refuge because of deadly attacks on villages. Photographer: Mohamed Dayfour
A. is a widow and mother of four, who lost her husband to the conflict. She is accompanied by her son, O., her youngest child. They are at MSF’s mobile clinic. A. and her children have found refuge in a village, 40 kilometres from the town of Koro, central Mali. She is in a state of shock and is alone with her children, whom she can no longer feed. She has come to see an MSF psychologist. Photographer: Mohamed Dayfour
This woman and her child are displaced. They travelled to MSF’s clinic in the Bandiagara Circle. Many displaced children in this region suffer from malnutrition and malaria. Photographer: Mohamed DayfourThese three adolescents girls were displaced in central Mali. They have come to be treated at MSF’s mobile clinic, in Bandiagara Circle, where over 1000 people displaced by armed conflict have taken refuge. Photographer: Mohamed Dayfour

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Seipati Moloi

Media Liaison Co-ordinator, Doctors Without Borders (MSF)

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