Red Cross team attacked in north

Unidentified armed assailants attacked a Malian Red Cross mission which was on its way to help the residents in the northeastern region of Bourem at the weekend, a Red Cross official told IRIN on Friday. The two drivers and five trainers in the Red Cross team escaped unharmed but the attackers stole two Land Cruisers, 2.3 million CFA (US $4,300) and personal effects. “We deplore the villainous action which took place in Bourem, namely the attack of a humanitarian mission which was on its way to assisting the victims of the 2003 floods,” Adama Diarra, director of the Malian Red Cross Committee, told IRIN. Heavy flooding last year destroyed 98% of the 10.000 hectares of cultivated land in the Bourem area, which lies 1300 km north of the capital Bamako. The Red Cross team had been heading there to train people how to fight cholera and help malaria prevention by distributing free impregnated mosquito nets to pregnant women and children under five. The attack happened en route near the village of Hamakouladji about 50 km from Gao, late on Sunday afternoon. Diarra said the Malian Red Cross had complained to the authorities and had called on the ministers of security, internal administration and foreign affairs to ensure better security for humanitarian personnel in the field. Sunday's attack was not the first on humanitarian organizations in the north of Mali, where a Tuareg rebellion ended ten years ago, but banditry persists. Diarra said that in 1997 a Red Cross representative was held hostage for a whole month before being released. But he said the Red Cross had no intention of stopping its activities in the north. “Despite this act, the Malian Red Cross will pursue its mission of assistance to the deprived people," Diarra said. "We cannot abandon them.”