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REBELLION: AL-JEBHA 277a pilot project repatriated 468 refugees. Upon arrival in Mali, these almostimmediately returned to Algeria. In August a second group of about 1,000 wassent home, and these too had returned to Algeria by November as the sites ofresettlement in Mali had been destroyed. 41 The project was aborted and no newattempts to return the refugees were seriously undertaken until the effectiveending of the conflict in 1995. By the end of 1992, the main theatres of conflictwere located in the Tamesna, the Azawad and the Niger Bend, provoking asecond, larger wave of refugees, this time mainly towards Mauritania, and to alesser extent to Burkina Faso. These countries were closer to the concernedareas. In Mauritania, three refugee camps were created at Bassikounou, Aghorand Fassala-Niéré. In June 1991, the number of refugees reached about 5,000. 42By October, this number had increased by a factor of six. 43 In Burkina Faso,most refugees ended up in the neighbourhood of Gorom-Gorom and SaanYogo. Between August 1991 and the end of 1994, their numbers rose fromabout 10,000 to 30,000. The conflict reached its high point in mid 1994 with theadvent of the sedentary Ganda Koy movement (infra). By the end of 1994 thenumber of refugees in Mauritania reached an estimated 70,000, with 2,000 newarrivals a week in August 1994. 44 By then, fighting had flared up again in theAdagh as well, provoking a new wave of Kel Adagh refugees to Algeria. Someestimates of the total number of refugees by the end of 1994 reach 160,000. 45The refugees were not granted official refugee status by international organisationssuch as the UNHCR and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent.They were labelled ‘displaced persons’, which had consequences on the amountof help they received. Material assistance in the camps was often inadequate.The Algerian Red Crescent, for example, could only muster a 100 tons of semolina;7,500 kilos of sugar; and 115 boxes of corned beef to feed a populationof 5,700 souls at the refugee camp at I-n-Guezzam for the whole of 1992,without any further assistance. 46 In 1992, the UNHCR had released a budget of4,000,000 US dollars to support the refugees in Mauritania. Unfortunately, aquarter of this budget had to be spent on transport from Nouakchott to the414243444546Based on ‘Dossier Nord le prix de la paix’, Cauris, February 1993; ‘Face aux forcessociales réunies samedi à Koulouba, Alpha rassure sans convaincre’, Le Républicain,01/06/1994; ‘Le pacte national deux ans après’, Le Républicain, 26/01/ 1994.‘Razzias et représailles dans le Nord Malien’, Libération, 26/07/1991.Baqué, ‘Des Touaregs doublement dépossédés’, Le Monde Diplomatique (June1992).ag Mohamed Abba, Association des Refugiés et Victimes de la Répression del’Azawad. Rapport sur la situation générale dans les camps des refugiés Arabes etTouaregs en Mauritanie (17/12/1994) Personal archive; and ‘Rush des réfugiesmaliens vers la Mauritanie’, Mauritanie Nouvelles, 25/07/1994.Limam, Z. ‘Mali: Avis de tempête’, Jeune Afrique, 10-16/11/1994.‘Camps des refugiés, l’entassement’, Algérie actualité, 21/10/1992.