The ferocity of the war in Syria pushed Fatma Abbas’s family and other families to leave Idlib, the Syrian city, on a long trip to seek asylum that led them from one continent to another. At first, they found themselves in Khartoum, where they received an unexpected welcome as Fatma states which led them to continue seeking a more welcoming place and they finally reach the city of “In Khalil”, located 700 km to the northeast of Timbuktu in the far north of Mali near the Algerian borders.

Although they are cornered and continually harassed, smugglers networks still resist. They even ended up developing parades. I must say that smuggling has, for many years, been a well organised activity and, moreover, it has a shared complicity on both sides of the borders between Mali and Algeria.

At the extreme south east of Mauritania, the camp’s inhabitants are afraid to return to Mali. Their eyes are riveted on Algiers negotiations which hold the key for their return. But the M’berra populations demand more than a document to feel safe and consider leaving camp.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (HCR) in Mauritania is criticised by some of Camp M’berra’s refugees from North Mali. They accuse HCR of having excluded them from the lists which enable access to food aid distributed once a month. Refugees claim that in so doing, one seeks to incite them to return to their country, after three years of exile.