To apply for asylum in Mali, if you are in Mali, you want to contact the closest office of the National Commission for Refugees (CNR), the closest office of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), or any office of the territorial authority.
Mali is a member state of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo are all member states of ECOWAS. Citizens of any ECOWAS should be able to travel and work in any other ECOWAS countries. Although you want to check first before you travel or move between ECOWAS countries.
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Asylum process in Mali
Any asylum seeker on the national territory of Mali who falls under the mandate of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and is recognized as such by an act of the Government of the Republic of Mali can benefit from refugee status.
Any application for refugee status, whether from the applicant or the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, is addressed to the Minister in charge of Territorial Administration. An order from the Minister in charge of Territorial Administration requires the admission of the loss of refugee status.
Decisions on awarding or withdrawing refugee status are open to reconsideration if new aspects surface or at the request of any interested party, including the UNHCR.
The beneficiary of refugee status may be expelled from Mali only for security reasons or if he is condemned to incarceration for activities classified as crimes or offenses.
Except for compelling reasons of national security or public order, expulsion may be ordered only after the opinion of a national advisory body responsible for refugees, in front of which the person in question may present his defense.
A deportation order against a refugee cannot be enforced until all avenues of appeal have been exhausted.
The procedure for enforcing the final deportation decision must provide the person affected a fair period of time to be accepted to another country.
The same provisions apply to everyone who has been refused refugee status.
Right of refugees in Mali
A recognized refugee who wishes to go abroad receives, upon request, a travel document in line with the Geneva Convention of 1951 related to the status of refugees and the model referred to in Article 28 of the aforementioned agreement.
The refugee enjoys the same treatment as a Mali national in terms of access to medical care, the labor market, social security, and education, particularly in terms of registration fees. as well as academic writing.
Refugees in Mali
In 2016, there were more than 100,000 refugees in Mali. They are from Mauritania, the Central African Republic, and the Republic of the Congo. The UNHCR detected hundreds of Burkinabe refugees in Mali in June 2019. A number of refugees are in Timbuktu and Goa, while internally displaced people (IDPs) live in Bamako, Mopti, and Timbuktu, as well as the Western provinces of Kidal and Gao.
As of July 2020, Mali had almost 300,000 internally displaced people (IDPs), over 100,000 Malian refugees in neighboring nations, and nearly 100,000 repatriated refugees. The number of displaced individuals increased in the summer of 2020, as security situations deteriorated in Mopti, Timbuktu, Gao, and Ménaka. Since February 2019, the number of displaced people has steadily increased. The claimed reasons for Malian refugees and IDPs to flee are mostly armed war and intercommunal violence, but in certain cases natural calamities.
Sources: Loi N° 98-040 of 1998 relating to the status of refugees, Integral Human Development on Mali
The cover image is somewhere in Mali. Photo by Jordan McGee on Unsplash