Mali, Burkina and the UNHCR signed on Wednesday, during the closing ceremony of their 13th tripartite meeting, a revised tripartite agreement which aims to create favorable conditions for forced displaced persons living on the soil of Burkina Faso and the Republic of Mali.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Cooperation and Burkinabè Abroad Karamoko Jean Marie Traoré, co-chaired on Wednesday March 27, 2024, in Ouagadougou, with the Malian Minister of Health and Social Development, Colonel Assa Badiallo Touré, the closing ceremony of the 13th tripartite meeting Burkina Faso – Republic of Mali – United Nations High Commission for Refugees.
This meeting allowed the three parties to sign the revised tripartite agreement. This aims to create favorable conditions for forced displaced persons living on the soil of Burkina Faso and the Republic of Mali, and to now take into account the repatriation dimension of Burkinabè refugees living in Mali.
‘This agreement symbolizes the collective will of the three par
ties to agree to provide an adequate response to the difficulties of people in refugee situations, so that they have a better living condition,’ said Karamoko Jean Marie Traoré.
On both sides, refugees are in Burkina Faso and Mali. This is why the Malian Minister of Health and Social Development, Colonel Assa Badiallo Touré, also welcomed the signing of the agreement which, she maintains, will allow Mali and Burkina Faso, in tandem with the UNHCR, to working to ‘give a happy life to forcibly displaced people’.
In the implementation of this agreement, the two countries can count on the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, notes the UNHCR Resident Representative in Burkina Faso, Maurice Azonnankpo. Indeed, the UN institution is committed to ‘facilitating the repatriation process, to guaranteeing the security and dignity of refugees,’ he specifies.
In addition to signing the revised agreement, the participants made recommendations, according to the Permanent Secretary of the National Commission for Re
fugees.
According to Dr Oumarou Kologo, the said recommendations are based on the harmonization of statistics on repatriations and the designation of members of the structures to be part of the next session.
The tripartite agreement between Burkina Faso, the Republic of Mali and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees signed on January 9, 2015 only concerned the voluntary repatriation of Malian refugees living in Burkina Faso.
The next tripartite meeting will be held next September in Bamako on Malian soil.
Source: Burkina Information Agency