Enormous Challenges Faced by Mali's Urban Displaced

Over the past year, the conflict in northern Mali has forced more than 228,000 people to seek refuge in other parts of the country - including some 51,000 who have fled to Bamako, the capital. Without the support networks and other resources they left behind, internally displaced Malians face enormous challenges. High rents in Bamako, for example, compel many of the uprooted to seek shelter in crowded apartments far from the city centre. Limited access to health care, clean water and education makes their situation even more precarious.

Finding work is also incredibly difficult in a new environment where job opportunities typically come through personal or family connections. And so, in suburban neighbourhoods like Sangarébougou, farmers and animal herders now sit idly in unfamiliar apartments, and teachers struggle to find new posts even though local schools are overcrowded.

Hopes of returning home soared in recent weeks as French troops drove the separatists out of population centres like Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu. Yet northern Mali is still far from safe and secure. Until it is, many displaced Malians will struggle on in Bamako.

The Long Road Home: A Family's Return to Timbuktu

War came to Timbuktu last April, when ethnic Tuareg rebels seized the ancient city in northern Mali from government control. It soon fell under the control of militants, who started imposing a strict version of sharia law on the inhabitants. Women were forced to wear veils in public, adulterers were whipped or stoned, thieves had their hands amputated and centuries-old burial chambers were destroyed.

Thousands of people fled from Timbuktu and many sought shelter to the south in the Malian capital, Bamako. Fatima Nialy, a mother of four, joined the flow heading south because she felt like a prisoner in her own house in Timbuktu. In Bamako, she and her children - including a one-month-old son - were taken in by relatives, using a room in her older brother's home.

In February 2013, not long after French and Malian forces liberated Timbuktu, Fatima decided to return home with her children. Photographer Thomas Martinez followed them.

Relocation from the Border Country of Burkina Faso

The process of relocating refugees from one site to a safer one is full of challenges. In Burkina Faso, the UN refugee agency has been working with partner organizations and the government to move thousands of Malian refugee families away from border sites like Damba to a safer camp some 100 kilometres to the south. Working under hot and harsh conditions, the aid workers had to dismantle shelters and help people load their belongings onto trucks for the journey. The new site at Mentao is also much easier to access with emergency assistance, including shelter, food, health care and education. These images, taken by photographer Brian Sokol, follow the journey made by Agade Ag Mohammed, a 71-year-old nomad, and his family from Damba to Mentao in March. They fled their home in Gao province last year to escape the violence in Mali, including a massacre that left two of his sons, a brother and five nephews dead. As of mid-April 2013 there were more than 173,000 Malian refugees in neighbouring countries. Within the arid West African nation there are an estimated 260,000 internally displaced people.