Since the beginning of January 2012, an insurgent group has been fighting with the Mali government for the independence of northern Mali, an area known as Azawad. This group, formally known as National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and also referred to as Tuareg nationalists, joined forces with Islamist rebels. By using their combined forces, they gained control of northern Mali in the spring 2012.
When I was a little girl, I clearly remember my mother reading poems to me about young men travelling to battlefields to fight in the war. I remember listening to how they would travel through the trenches and how their bodies lay dead in the muddy fields. Now, when I read poems to my grandson [...]
In 2002, I was appointed an Envoy to the Peace Process in the Sudan. As part of my job I went to Northern Uganda. When I arrived in the evening I saw hundreds of children walking,
The children were as young as six years old. Everywhere I looked there were young children walking with a purpose? They were not dawdling or lingering. They were walking towards a goal. The person accompanying me explained to me that they were Commuter children.
When I was a little girl, I clearly remember my mother reading poems to me about young men travelling to the battlefields to fight in the war. I remember listening to how they would travel through the trenches and how their bodies lay dead in the muddy fields. Now, when I read poems to my children about war, there is a stark difference. War has come into our communities and into our homes, literally and figuratively. For those lucky enough, war has come to their homes only by television. Others are not so fortunate. The Rwandan genocide, the war in Sierra Leone, the conflict in the Congo – these are no longer wars fought on a battlefield; rather, they have come to our streets and backyards, directly affecting our men, women, boys and girls.