Bringing back hope in their lives
Jahara Mohamman, who lives in a small village near the city of Gao in the West African country of Mali, has been suffering from irregular menstruation for many years.
But the 25-year-old has never been to a doctor to discuss the issue, simply because she has never come across a female physician with whom she could talk without inhibition.
Jahara is not the only one; most women in her village are facing the same problem.
So when a team of Bangladeshi soldiers, who are in Mali on peacekeeping duties on behalf of the United Nations, recently set up a medical camp in their village that had a female doctor, Jahara was not just relieved but also grateful.
“When the Bangladeshi female doctor first conducted a medical camp here, I got the chance to share my problems with her for the first time. They also gave me medicine. Now that my problems are gone, I feel very well,” she told this reporter.
Jahara spoke to this correspondent with the help of an interpreter.
Hundreds of women along with their children stood in long queues in front of the medical camp, wishing to talk about their gynecological problems with the female doctor -- Maj Ashrafia Shatu -- who could be the only one they are going to see in their lifetime.
“Due to a crisis of proper healthcare facilities, most villagers [in Mali] suffer from various problems. Of them, women are the worst sufferers. They suffer from malnutrition and gynecological problems,” Maj Shatu told this correspondent, in between helping patients at the camp.
For Malians, healthcare facilities are not very easily available. Geographically, East Jidara, the village where Jahara lives, is not very remote -- it’s just 10km from Gao. If there is a serious medical complication, villagers usually go to the city.
But villages located in remote areas of the country, around 8.5 times bigger than Bangladesh, do not have that opportunity.
Absence of road communication, and on top of that, risks of getting hit by IEDs (improvised explosive devices), landmines, rocket launchers or mortar shells make travelling slow and dangerous.
Then again, just because Gao is a city that does not mean it offers ample civic amenities to people. The city, located near the Niger river, has a handful of healthcare facilities, which are run by the government and are either ill-equipped or hit hard by manpower constraints.
As a result, people of most Malian villages have no other option but to rely on quacks.
“We regularly arrange medical camps and distribute medicine among villagers in Mali. We also give wheelchairs and other medical equipment to local healthcare facilities,” said Lt Col Md Amirul Hasan, senior medical officer (Level-1) of Gao Super Camp, one of the regional base camps for Bangladeshi peacekeepers.
The first of the Bangladeshi UN peacekeepers went to the restive West African country in 2013 to help local authorities bring back peace and stability in the wake of deadly tribal clashes that had escalated after Islamist militant groups made Mali their stronghold.
In Mali, urban areas such as the capital city Bamako is relatively peaceful. But the villages have remained hotbeds for tribal clashes, in which hundreds have died.
Every time a village is gripped by clashes, Bangladeshi peacekeepers are dispatched there to bring back peace.
Needless to say, that’s never an easy task. The Bangladeshi army personnel cannot just force themselves into a war zone, wielding guns or hurling bombs at the colliding tribes.
“The first thing we have to do [when we go to a conflict zone] is to gain people’s trust. For that we conduct CIMIC [civil-military cooperation] activities. One such activity is to set up medical camps,” said CIMIC officer Maj Md Abu Jafor.
Bangladeshi soldiers also run veterinary camps in the villages. Rearing cattle -- cows, goats, donkeys and camels -- is the chief occupation of people living in rural Mali.
But disease outbreaks often result in widespread loss of livestock. Like humans, cattle in the Malian desert hardly ever get to see a proper doctor.
The rural Malians and livestock suffer from various micronutrient deficiencies. For people, meat and milk are the only form of food they get to eat throughout the year. The desert geology and climate do not allow cereals and vegetables to grow.
Similarly, there is not much grazing grounds for the cattle in the middle of the desert.
“As [rearing and selling] cattle is their only means of earning, at times it’s more important for them to care of those than themselves,” said Maj Jafor.
Habibullah Alasan, a young Malian, told this correspondent, “Bangladeshi troops help us in many ways. We are very grateful to them. Whenever we see a Bangladeshi convoy, we welcome them. The way they help us, we always try to reciprocate that as a show of gratitude.”
Other CIMIC activities include helping Malians reopen some local schools that have been shut down due to escalating conflict. Besides, Bangladeshi peacekeepers also distribute educational materials to villagers.