Azawadis refuse to live with racism

A member of a refugee camp committee in east Mauritania has said the camp is suffering from a severe shortage in food supply adding that "food supply granted for Azawadi, Tuareg families and for Sudan do not exceed 27kgs of rice a month". Ahmed Agh Bokhary, who helps run the camo in Ambara, east Mauritania said: "All that they get includes the 'six essentials' excluding milk which considered the most important dietary supplement for the camp's inahbitants," referring to the ethnic Bedouins of whom 90 percent depend on milk as a basic part of their diet. "We are asking for food products with protein...it's hard to spend three months without meat, nobody here is vegetarian and African diets include a lot of meat," said the ethnic Azawadi. Bokhary, 60, called on aid agencies to intervene and and provide more resources for the approaching winter. He added: "The Mauritanian government has offered them a lot of aid, the refugees almost feel at home...Mali and Mauritania were after all only separated while ruled by the French." "We urge international human rights organisations to help solve north Mali's problems in order to facilitate our return to our homeland after being abandoned by force under gunfire...we were living in a racist state where we can't co–exist, since 1963 we are running from the Malian military. In 1991 we entered Mauritania in the first camp and now 2012 we return, fleeing war and attacks from Mali military" We have tried to live in Mali - but it is a racist state, that wants to exclude northern inhabitants from their rights, so now we believe that we have to be independent and we need the world to support us to get our lands back..we will also accept it if northern Mali becomes part of Mauritania or Algeria." Bokhary continued: "Mali tried to disperse tribes, sowing sedition in the North, as it gets the most benefits from that, and the regime of toppled president Toumani Touré discriminated between Tuareg Arabs while Sudan blames him for events in the north." Bokhary said: "We are Ambara inhabitants in refugee camps today, and we demand the rights offered to refugees worldwide, we need specialists in medicine, midwives and more space...more than 70,000 refugees are crowded in one place unlike a camp that was built in Mauritania in 1991 during the war in northern Mali." "I lived two different experiences in both camps, in 1991 and 2012, as today there is room for freedom, and some streets are not allowed to refugees, some families were dispersed in camps, some in the far north, others in the south. The authorities don’t allow the entire family to stay in one place...it might be to control the movement of refugees, or even due to the involvement od al-Qaeda who were not an active part of the crisis in 1991," he said "We were paying taxes and after war the broke out we ran way. We don’t support al-Qaeda presence in our lands, we can't face them, but every major country has to do her part in facing organisational problems," he explained. On asked about the situation in north, he said: "I support an independent north...before the French left, they asked us to secede, but the move was opposed by Sheikh Mohamed Ali Walad Al Taher, and before him Mohamed El Mahdy. But Mali betrayed its ancestors, starting killing operations, of which the fronts are now Malian since 1963 in the era of former president Gibi Sala. In 1990 these fronts started killing our sons...they will not grant us our rights but they gave some men from the north power in [capital] Bamako, showing them to the media, forcing them to talk about northern rights, showing the world that Malian government was fair, which is not true." Finally Bokhary said: "We are not allowing any one in the north to be in power unless our sons of the Azawad are included, which consist pf Tuareg, Arabs, Sudanese, and Al Filan, who were living in this land before occupation...Tabkamo city is not for Sudan as it's said today, as it goes back thousands of years to the Berbers, historically, we defended this land from French occupation, it is our land, and we can't be an autonomous region, we need independence."