(In) Security Sandwich

Note:  There has never been a time since arriving in Niger that I’ve felt unsafe and I actually think all the below information is truly sad for what all this is doing for the Nigerien economy.

“We’re in the middle of a sandwich,” my boss said to me during orientation the day after I arrived, once we got to the topic of security.  He then proceeded to tell me precisely what he meant for the next 2 hours.  He drew a diagram on the white board in his office to illustrate his point which in the end looked like some CIA operation.  “Al Quaida’s hanging out up here…” he scattered some dots around the north east of Mali and north west of Niger “…and every so often make their way down here…” he drew some arrows down into Niger “…to attempt kidnappings of foreigners…basically if you have white skin and you travel up this way, you have a target on your back.  Then you have a group called Boko Hourom down here…” he drew more dots just under Niamey in the northern regions of Nigeria “…that try to make their way up into here…” more arrows up into Niger “…to attempt some things though they haven’t succeeded much.  On top of these two groups, we have the recent outbreaks of attacks in northern Mali and the coup that just occurred in Bamako resulting in thousands of refugees fleeing into Niger here.”  More dots and arrows.

I studied the map and saw he was right.  Niamey and the band straight east and west of the city mark some sort of ‘safe’ zone which was broken into once a year ago when two French guys were kidnapped right from the restaurant where they were eating here in Niamey.  The convoy headed north, making authorities believe they were with Al-Qaeda though it still isn’t clear what all happened except the resulting deaths of most everyone involved.  Sadly, this created a ripple fear among the foreign community resulting in some major pull-outs, one of the biggest being the Peace Corps.  To that point, the Niger program had been one of the longest running programs of the Peace Corps worldwide since its inception.

After my boss laid out every movement of AQIM and Boko Hourom for the last 6 years, including a 20 minute tangent on the centuries year old slave trade route from the coast of southern West Africa to the Mediterranean Sea, I went to go research these groups for myself.  Apparently, the Al-Qaeda group he mentioned is Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and has an ultimate aim of overthrowing the Algerian government to institute an Islamic state.  It has openly declared its campaign to attack Algerian, Spanish, French, and American targets so of course it’s labeled by the US and the EU as a terrorist organization.  They’re also related to that smuggling ring my boss also mentioned that goes from northern Mauritania through Mali, Niger, Libya and Chad….all to make money to finance their operations.  With crackdowns from the Algerian government, they’ve headed into the Eastern region of Mali and the northern region of Niger.  Ultimately, though, little is known about exactly where they’re at and how they operate and their ultimate goal.  Find out more  here. 

Boko Haram is also a terrorist organization, jihadist, and also an Islamist movement opposing man-made laws in the northeast of Nigeria.  The Hausa name Boko Haram actually translates as “Western education is sacrilege/sin.”  In 2011, it was responsible for more than 450 killings in Nigeria.  There seems to be a special dislike toward Christians so reports of churches that have been burned often make their way here to Niger.  Also similar to AQIM, not much is known about their strategy, structure, or if it’s linked to outside groups.  Find out more here.

As for the Mali situation, well, let’s just say I’ve been taking crash courses in the history of Mali, the Tuareg, and what to do in refugee situations.  The Taureg are a group who have sought independence from Mali for decades now, but have begun to renew their efforts through attacks of towns in eastern Mali.  The new movement is called the Movement National de Liberation de l’Azawad (MNLA). 

On top of the Tuareg rebellion was what people are now calling the ‘accidental’ coup of the current Malian president by its unhappy and frustrated national army. It’s said the group that marched into the capital of Bamako at the end of March weren’t really intending to take over the Presidency but the President up and fled ready-enough to hand over power and soon they had control without any struggle. The funny thing about that as well is the Presidency was already up for re-election in 2 months! Anyway, the sudden focus on this coup allowed the Tuareg rebels to advance even further and wreak more havoc, sending more refugees fleeing into Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Niger.

Being that my organization is first and foremost a relief organization, and being that the growing refugee situation is where some of the biggest and most urgent needs are right now, AND being that I’m now the official fund obtainer for this office…you get the picture.  This whole week has been full of meetings with UNHCR, OCHA, WFP and all the major emergency humanitarian aid organizations to figure out who’s doing what and where.  Several impromptu refugee camps have formed from the nearly 30,000 Malian refugees who’ve fled into northern Niger.  As UNHCR frantically searches to find a more permanent and fitting site to move all of them, these refugees are literally dying from the heat and sickness.  In 115+ degree days in the middle of the hottest time of the year, the refugees are basically living under sticks holding up their clothes stretched out to provide some sort of shade.  Water trucks have been brought into a couple of the sites but as I write this post, there is not yet one latrine or douche area built.  More refugees are arriving every day.  To better assess the situation, and because neither I nor my boss could travel up there due to our white skin, we sent our Projects Coordinator up there to be our eyes.  He told us what he witnessed today and showed us pictures and I just listened and stared at the pictures in disbelief.  He said he got to one site and was told a man was extremely sick and close to death.  As he started toward where the man was laying, people met him and said he’d already passed away and not to bother coming.  He decided to go anyway and when he got there, checked the man’s pulse.  He could feel a faint heartbeat and immediately had everyone carry the man to his truck to be transported to the nearest hospital, more than 100 kilometers away.  He saw families with worms in their water and mothers sheltering their children from the sun with their own bodies. 

 Refugees in northern Niger-note the color of their water

Refugees in northern Niger

With all this information from today and the whole week, I managed to crank out my first proposal for funding to help in this situation in about a day!  We'll be focusing on sanitation and hygiene as  current numbers are 0% latrine coverage in the 4 refugee sites we've been looking at, and no hygiene facilities/education.  Though it’s been sad to hear all that’s been going on, it’s also been amazing to be able to help so immediately and tangibly now that I’m here on the ground.  Today, I was also able to visit two refugee families here in Niamey and hear their stories.  Their village in Mali, Gao, was completely ransacked, burned, destroyed by Tuareg rebels.  They fled here to Niamey with the wife just 2 weeks away from giving birth to their third child.

The refugee mother in Niamey.

I could go on and on...this is my context now!