When a village near Bankass, Mali, was attacked in March 2019, Hawa Minta opened her front yard to families displaced by the violence. She has been hosting between 120 and 190 people ever since.
Hawa Minta was at home when she received the call. Her mother-in-law’s village in central Mali had been attacked by armed men and nearly 200 people were now on the run, looking for somewhere safe to hide. Hawa, an elementary school teacher living some 100 miles away near the town of Mopti, did not have much to offer, but she had a front yard. She felt compelled to help.
The March 2019 attack had happened without warning—most had fled with only the clothes on their backs. At first the villagers slept under Hawa’s trees and ate what little food she had. Neighbors dropped off old clothing and supplies.
Hawa’s husband contacted every aid worker he knew in town, asking for help. With funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Catholic Response Services (CRS) responded immediately to their call for help with cooking supplies, food and tents. In partnership with USAID, CRS has worked closely with local organizations and the Government of Mali to provide lifesaving assistance like food, water and shelter to more than 210,000 displaced people like those Hawa Minta is helping.
It has been more than a year since the villagers arrived, and while some have moved on to Bamako and other cities in search of work, more than one hundred still live in Hawa’s yard. Returning to their village in Mopti Region, which has become the center of one the world’s most deadly conflicts, is not an option. Since 2012, a surge in violence throughout Africa’s Sahel region has displaced 3.5 million people, including more than 200,000 in Mali. In 2019 central Mali saw a record 456 documented killings, including four from the March attack on Hawa’s family’s village. Prolonged droughts have contributed to land disputes between farmers and cattle herders. As the climate has warmed, the amount of arable land has diminished, causing tensions to escalate. Meanwhile, armed groups have pitted farmers and herders against each other and exploited their economic desperation to recruit new members.
Though she is grateful for the support from USAID and CRS, Hawa is often overwhelmed with juggling the demands of being a mother, wife and teacher on top of running a site for displaced people out of her home. On a recent Wednesday morning a group of women pounded cornmeal by Hawa’s front door while children ran in circles around the yard and fussy babies wept. “I hope one day this will all end,” Minta says as she looked out at the tents and buckets strewn across her lawn. But when that day comes, she says, it will be bittersweet. I have gotten used to having them here,” she says with a smile. “They have become like family.”
Annika Hammerschlag for CRS