Mali: UNHCR steps up support for refugees

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has deployed its workers to assist some 20,000 people forced to flee fighting between government troops and rebel Tuareg groups in Mali. In a statement, made available to PANA in New York, it said that, 'most of those uprooted by the violence in the Azawad region of northern Mali that began in mid-January have fled to Niger, Burkina Faso and Mauritania'.