[SatNews] Unrest and danger create chaos and fear— communication is the calming element that is offered again by...

A TSF team is currently intervening in Timbuktu. The TSF experts installed an Internet satellite connection at the town hall for the benefit of the NGOs, the crisis unit, the hospital staff and the local authorities.

The mobile network has been restored but functions only partially. The TSF emergency team thus has set up humanitarian calling operations for local populations.

People are mainly making international calls (United States, Senegal, Ivory Coast, France, Liberia…) to tell their loved ones they are safe and sound.

Information earlier this week,
The emergency team carried 14 mobile satellite lines and all the equipment necessary to create 4 emergency telecom centers. This equipment will reinforce the capacities of humanitarian workers in the region of Timbuktu enabling them to share vital information to manage the very critical humanitarian situation in this area.

The communication is very disturbed in northern Mali, where land lines and mobile network have been cut off in several towns, and the activities of the NGOs in this region are very limited because of the degradation in safety conditions.

Since April, TSF has been reinforcing the coordination among the humanitarian actors working with Malian refugees in Niger and Burkina Faso thanks to four satellite telecom centres in the biggest refugee camps on the Mali borders. UNHCR estimates at 225,000 the number of displaced people inside Mali and at 144,400 the number of refugees in neighboring countries.