Red Cross says more than 500,000 people need food, health care aid in northern Mali

"More than half a million people in northern Mali, occupied by Islamist fighters, need aid to cope with rising food prices, collapsed public services and a lack of health care, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Thursday," Reuters reports. "Public services practically no longer function, basic health services are not provided and supplying clean drinking water is difficult. Needs are huge," Yasmine Praz Dessimoz, head of ICRC operations for North and West Africa, said at a news conference in Geneva, according to the news agency. "The ICRC, which deploys 111 aid workers in Mali, is one of few humanitarian organizations to have access to all of northern Mali, where no United Nations aid agencies deploy any staff," Reuters notes (Nebehay, 9/13).