Nearly 10 years ago, Mariame Coulibaly Sangare lost everything when armed violence in northern Mali forced her to flee her home. Desperate for money, she saw an opportunity with the arrival of a new United Nations peacekeeping mission in the West African nation's capital, Bamako.
Sangare left her previous job of trading animal skins to open a restaurant across the street from the mission's headquarters. Selling rice dishes to U.N. workers earned the 58-year-old enough money to help support her family. But after Mali’s military junta ordered the mission to leave the country, the mother of 14 worries her reliable income will be gone along with the peacekeepers.
