ASC-075287668-2887-01

REVOLUTION: TESHUMARA AND TANEKRA 199Taking the ‘normal’ course of migration towards the Azawad, many inhabitantsof the Adagh, the Azawad and the Niger Bend ended up fleeing without livestockto Niger. There, they populated refugee camps called Lazaret I and II,which were guarded by the Nigerien army that tried to keep away the worldpress flocking in droves to film and photograph the hunger without much realexplanation of the causes to the public confronted with these images. In 1974,an estimated 18,000 Malian refugees, mostly Kel Tamasheq, inhabited thecamps, divided into wards organised by region of origin. Water was deliveredby trucks once a day, food and medical care were well arranged by theInternational Red Cross and the UNHCR. The first camp, close to Niamey, wasevacuated and rebuilt 20 kilometres outside the city as the inhabitants roamedthe streets of Niamey trying to sell what goods they had left, or making someextra money by prostituting themselves. 15 In 1975, an estimated 13,000 KelTamasheq still inhabited this camp, although by then the rains had returned andthe worst of the drought was over. 16 But what was there to return to when alllivestock had perished and no money was left to replace them with importsfrom elsewhere? At present the majority of the Tamasheq community inNiamey consists of former Malian refugees, mostly from the Niger Bend, whosettled permanently, making a living as guards or day labourers. Others took theroad to Algeria, where they populated refugee camps at the border towns ofTimiaouen and Bordj Mokhtar, where an estimated 12,000 Kel Tamasheqsought help. 17 Some moved on to Tamanrasset and other cities in SouthernAlgeria, where they were helped by relatives who had fled during Alfellaga.Others went to the South of Mali and from there to cities throughout WestAfrica, as far away as Abidjan and Lagos. But the vast majority of the KelTamasheq did not have the strength or the means to leave. They had to stay on,waiting for help that never arrived in the towns of Northern Mali. Their numberswere estimated at 47,000, dispersed over thirty refugee camps in the Gaoand Timbuktu Régions. 18 Most victims were children who, weakened by malnutrition,died of seemingly innocent diseases like measles, or more direct effectsof hunger such as oedema. Choleric diarrhoea did the rest. Both relief aidorganisations and journalists had only limited access to these camps. The TraoréGovernment was of the opinion that food and medical supplies were necessary,but that their distribution and the further organisation of the relief effort couldbe left to them. Import taxations, levies, forms and paperwork that needed‘greasing’ to be completed, all manners of ‘eating’ in the relief supplies were15161718Ibid.: 51.Courier de l’UNESCO, (April 1975), 11. In: Boilley, P. 1999: 374.ag Litny, I. 1992: 162.West Africa, 01/04/1974. In: Derrick, J. 1977: 561.