Members of the Association for the Promotion of Livestock in the  Sahel and Savanna (APESS), including its Mali representative Ansigue Moussa Ouologuem, in Mopti, in Mali's Middle Niger Delta region. Pastoralist leaders say 30% of their animals have died as they are stranded on the edge of Mali's rebel-held territory, barred from their traditional rainy season pasturelands to the north that are now in the hands of Islamist rebels. The nomadic pastoralists, mostly of the Fulani ethnicity, say the jihadist militias steal their livestock and kill those who resist. But their way south is now barred by the swollen floodplain of the Delta, which their animals are too weak to cross. APESS and Fulani leaders say their way of life may face an imminent end if they do not receive urgent aid.

Photo: Anna Jefferys/IRIN

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