More than 400,000 people – a quarter of the population – have escaped the increasingly harsher Sharia law imposed by Islamists fundamentalists in the Mali breakaway region of Azawad. Most of the refugees have fled to southern Mali, but some 10,000 Tuarge rebels – who initially collaborated with the Islamists to fight Mali government forces and gain independence for Azawad – have fled to neighboring Mauritania.

Neighboring countries are putting together an intervention force to kick the Islamists out of Azawad, but the Tuareg rebel leaders said they would not help the intervention force unless the future independence of Azawad is assured. This is not likely to happen, as neighboring countries prefer a unified Mali, and see their coming intervention as a means to achieve unification.