\n In a darkened hall in the capital Bamako, people are telling their own, personal horror stories from Mali's longrunning conflict, even as the country weathers a renewed wave of unrest.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mali's truth and reconciliation process is helping nearly 30,000 victims of violence to share their testimony and seek closure.\n<\/p>\n
\n Last week a woman shrouded in a veil to conceal her identity took to the stage to recount her ordeal to the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"I was raped by seven people, in front of my 15-year-old child,\" she said.\n<\/p>\n
\n The attack happened in 2012 in the northern city of Gao, the first major northern city to fall into the hands of pro-independence rebels and jihadists who had united to seize the territory.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ten years on, Gao has been recaptured by government forces but Mali is still in turmoil.\n<\/p>\n
\n Her disclosures, broadcast live on national television and social media, shocked many in the room, which was silenced by her testimony.\n<\/p>\n
\n Abdoulaye Toure, a 32-year-old member of a local NGO, said he \"did not know what to say in the face of such horrors\".\n<\/p>\n
\n \"I cried a lot, I was in pain,\" said Fabiola Wizeye Ngeruka, an expert in the issue of gender-based violence with the UN.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"I was in pain when I heard these housewives who have nothing, who have lived through 10 years of suffering, and it's only today that we can listen to their voices.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"All the victims said 'we want a peaceful Mali', that's really all we can ask: peace in Mali,\" she said.\n<\/p>\n
\n - Violence spreading -\n<\/p>\n
\n The commission was set up in 2015 when pro-independence insurgents in the north signed peace accords with the government they had fought against.\n<\/p>\n
\n It is one of a number of mechanisms meant to help reconcile Malians.\n<\/p>\n
\n But the jihadists have continued their expansion and the violence has spread further south and into neighbouring countries.\n<\/p>\n
\n In public hearings over the past two years, the commission has heard from victims of a litany crimes committed since independence in 1960.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mali's modern history has been marred by coups, military dictatorships, Tuareg rebellions and since 2012 a spiral of violence in which jihadists affiliated to Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State group have created chaos.\n<\/p>\n
\n Civilians have borne the brunt of the unrest with a recent UN report raising the alarm that recent months were the deadliest in years for ordinary Malians.\n<\/p>\n
\n The commission's investigators, who are scattered across the country, collected testimony from 28,877 victims.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"At each, before we started, we asked if they were ready for forgiveness and reconciliation,\" said Ousmane Oumarou Sidibe, the commission's head.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We were surprised, everyone said yes. But the question remains about the conditions of this forgiveness.\n<\/p>\n
\n - The 'conditions of forgiveness' -\n<\/p>\n
\n \"The process of catharsis is long-term work that should not be carried by the commission alone,\" said Sidibe.\n<\/p>\n
\n The most important thing, he added, was \"that everyone finds their place in the country\".\n<\/p>\n
\n The commission will serve as a basis for further efforts.\n<\/p>\n
\n The idea of financial reparations is being studied, Prime Minister Choguel Kokalla Maiga has said.\n<\/p>\n
\n The question of justice for perpetrators of crimes is ever-present, as it was at similar commissions elsewhere in Africa with its head stressing it \"is not a court\".\n<\/p>\n
\n The commission is \"a formidable tool that has done important work,\" said Ibrahim Maiga, a Sahel researcher at the International Crisis Group.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We have to see how to capitalise on this work, what role the structure that will take over from (it) could play,\" he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n And some of those involved in the process believe that peace is impossible without engaging the jihadists themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In a darkened hall in the capital Bamako, people are telling their own, personal horror stories from Mali's longrunning conflict, even as the country weathers a renewed wave of unrest. Mali's truth and reconciliation process is helping nearly 30,000 victims of violence to share their testimony and seek closure. Last week a woman shrouded in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-102189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n