Thousands of Malians Return to Liberated City

Thousands of people who fled when Islamists attacked the largest city in Mali's war-torn north have returned, a survey by a local charity working to resettle refugees told Agence France Presse on Thursday.

Tassaght said a study of returning refugees and internally displaced people indicated that 5,800 residents who fled the occupation by al-Qaida-linked Islamists had come home, most after Gao was liberated in late January.

The survey, which took the form of a questionnaire to returning residents, showed that "their primary needs are food", Tassaght head Almahadi Ag Akeratane told AFP.

"The displaced are coming back with nothing," he said, adding that many of those who fled have yet to return.

Gao and the rest of the northern desert area comprising about 60 percent of Mali fell to ethnic Tuareg rebels a year ago.

But they lost control to Islamist fighters who imposed a brutal version of sharia law on the local population before Mali's former colonial power France sent in troops and took back the cities of the north in January.

Gao has enjoyed an uneasy calm in the three weeks since a raid by resurgent militants, and buses coming back from the capital Bamako have been crowded.

Around 170,000 Malians have fled the region to neighboring countries and 260,000 others have been displaced internally since early 2012, according to the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Gao had about 90,000 inhabitants, but Tassaght estimates that around 80 percent fled the Islamist invasion.

"There isn't a single family that isn't missing someone," local councilor Yacouba Maiga told AFP.