The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has received reports of horrific abuses being committed in Mali, and it anticipates up to 700,000 more people will be forced to flee their homes in the next few months because of violence there. UNHCR staff members are relaying stories of "witnessed executions and amputations," and tales of large offers of money to civilians who will fight against the French-backed Malian army and its supporters, agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said on Friday. Reports of the use of child soldiers among the rebel groups, and disappeared family members, also are surfacing, she said. The accounts were recounted by some of the 265 Malian refugees who crossed into Burkina Faso in the past several days from Intahaka, N'Tillit and Dorage towns, and surrounding areas in the Gao region of northern Mali. The refugees said they had fled due to the recent military intervention, the lack of any means of subsistence and fear of the strict application of Islamic law, Fleming said.
