Goundam, Mali News

Northern Mali will descend to emergency levels of food insecurity in less than two months if the security situation and humanitarian access to vulnerable communities do not improve, warned four international aid agencies today following the analysis of experts from the Harmonized framework .

A suicide bomber attempted to force his way past the defenses of the city of Timbuktu on Saturday, detonating himself on its outskirts, while a landmine exploded in another part of northern Mali, killing a total of three, officials said.

This file picture taken on January 23, 2013 in Diabaly, 400 kilometres north of the capital Bamako, shows Malian people watching a French Sagaie armoured vehicle patroling.

Fears of ethnic reprisals by government troops in Mali have driven thousands of Arabs and Tuaregs in the country's north to abandon their homes and flee to Mauritania, undermining efforts to reunite their war-torn homeland.