Tribunal decisions

The decision

Upper Tribunal

(Immigration and Asylum Chamber)
Appeal Number: LP/00100/2020
PA/50176/2019

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Heard at Field House by MS Teams
Decision & Reasons Promulgated
On the 08 August 2022

On the 29 June 2022

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE GLEESON

Between

M K (Mali)
[NO ANONYMITY ORDER]
Appellant
and

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent
Representation:
For the appellant: Ms Shazia Khan of Counsel, instructed by Parker Rhodes Hickmotts
solicitors
For the respondent: Mr Steven Kotas, a Senior Home Office Presenting Officer
DECISION AND REASONS
1. The appellant appeals against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal dismissing his appeal against the respondent’s decision on 6 November 2019 to refuse him refugee status, humanitarian protection, or leave to remain in the UK on human rights grounds.

2. Anonymity order. Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the appellant is granted anonymity. No-one shall publish or reveal any information, including the name or address of the appellant, likely to lead members of the public to identify the appellant. Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.
3. Vulnerable appellant. The appellant is not a vulnerable person. In particular, there is no suggestion that he has any mental or physical health issues.
4. Mode of hearing. The hearing today took place remotely by Microsoft Teams. There were no technical difficulties. I am satisfied that all parties were in a quiet and private place and that the hearing was completed fairly, with the cooperation of both representatives.
5. Background. The appellant is a citizen of Mali, of Bambara ethnicity, and originally from Kidal in the north of the country. He was born in 1992, so he is now in his 30th year. Kidal is a 10-hour coach journey from Bamako, the capital of Mali.
6. The appellant has a wife, who remains in Kidal, living with her parents. His own parents, and his sister, were killed by the jihadists in 2012. His case is that his former boss, and the jihadists (who detained and abused him), both want to kill him and it is not safe for him to return to Kidal.
First-tier Tribunal decision.
7. First-tier Judge Saffer found the appellant’s account of events in his home area to be consistent and credible, given the passage of time since he left Mali in 2013. However, he considered that the events relied upon resulted from an internal armed conflict in northern Mali, and that the appellant had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, with no individual risk factors.
8. The judge noted that the city of Bamako, with over 2 million people, was 1500km from Kidal and there was no reason to suppose that the appellant would be at risk there. There was no evidence that the appellant had close and strong links to Bamako but he could find manual work there, as he had done in Algeria and Libya on his way to the UK. His wife could then join him and they could enjoy family life together in Bamako.
9. The appellant appealed to the Upper Tribunal.
Error of law decision.
10. By a decision sent to the parties on 15 October 2021, following a hearing on 11 October 2021, I set aside the decision of the First-tier Tribunal. Permission to appeal had been granted on the basis that it was arguable that the First-tier Tribunal had erred in failing adequately to consider humanitarian protection (Article 15(c), whether Mali was in a state of internal armed conflict in the appellant’s home area, and whether internal relocation was reasonable or would be unduly harsh on the facts.
11. Ms Khan, who also appeared on that occasion, confirmed that only the humanitarian protection part of the First-tier Tribunal decision was challenged, and that the dismissal of the Refugee Convention element of the appellant’s appeal was not in issue.
12. Mr McVeety, who appeared for the Home Office, confirmed that the positive credibility findings by the First-tier Tribunal were not disputed.
13. I directed that the remaking hearing be retained in the Upper Tribunal on the basis of submissions and expert evidence (if so advised).
Skeleton arguments.
14. Neither party complied with the Upper Tribunal’s direction following the case management review on 11 October 2021 to file skeleton arguments 7 days before the hearing. The Secretary of State’s skeleton argument was received on 28 June 2022, the day before the hearing, and Ms Khan’s skeleton argument was received at 09.12 on the morning of the hearing, 29 June 2022.
15. Explanations have been provided: neither party’s explanation is very satisfactory. In the interests of justice, I have had regard to these skeleton arguments. I treated them as the main argument by each representative and heard the parties on matters arising out of the skeleton arguments.
Issues
16. The appellant originates from Kidal in Mali. The respondent does not suggest that he can lawfully be returned there. Both representatives agreed, in their skeleton arguments and at the hearing, that the only issue for the Upper Tribunal was whether the appellant could be expected to return and exercise an internal relocation option to Bamako, the capital of Mali.
17. Ms Khan’s skeleton argument narrows the point further at [2]: it is not now the appellant’s case that there is a paragraph 15(c) internal or international armed conflict affecting Bamako, rather, she contends that there is an internal armed conflict in Kidal and that it would be unduly harsh for this appellant to relocate to Bamako, where he has never lived and has neither friends nor family members to help him resettle.
18. That is the basis on which I remake the decision in this appeal.
Evidence.
19. I have received a bundle of country materials (146 pages) from the appellant’s solicitors, received in good time on 5 May 2022. The size of the bundle exceeds the 100 A4 pages for which leave was given, but in the covering letter, Parker Rhodes Hickmotts applied for permission to adduce the extra pages. I am prepared on this occasion to give that permission.
Dr Marie Rodet’s report
20. The appellant relies on the country report of Dr Marie Rodet DIPPOL (Rennes), PhD (Vienna), a Reader in the History of Africa at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) of the University of London.

21. Much of Dr Rodet’s report is generic and focuses both on Mali as a whole, and on Kidal, as well as circumstances in Bamako, which are the focus of enquiry in these proceedings. There are HTML links in the footnotes to sources used in Dr Rodet’s report, which where relevant I have followed, since those documents are incorporated as part of the report.

22. So far as it relates to the situation in Bamako, Dr Rodet’s opinion may be summarised as follows. She considers that the appellant would be at high risk of hardship and possible destitution in Bamako, because he has no links there and Mali is in a profound financial and economic crisis.

23. The Association des Maliennes Expulsés (AME) is said to have acknowledged how extremely difficult it is for forcibly returned migrants to find resources and employment in Mali. The link in the footnote for this statement is to an Institute of Migration (IOM) report which is undated but relies on materials up to and including June 2020. At page 371 it contains a brief interview with Ousmane Diarra, the AME President, stating that numbers of returnees are falling, and that voluntary returnees have an easier time than forced returnees, who are not in a position to start businesses or invest in the country. AME is looking for funding for a reintegration project based on training migrants in agriculture, farming and fishing.

24. Dr Rodet’s opinion continues:

“…In their host centre, the AME only host and support those who want to return to their places of origin outside Bamako for three days. In cooperation with Doctors Without Borders, they also provide psychosocial support and mange support groups, but they do not currently run support programmes for economic reinsertion. The Malian authorities and NGOs already struggle to provide internally displaced populations with basic support. Most of IDPs have no choice but to settle in slums with no running water nor electricity on public wasteland in the capital city. The neighbourhood of Faladié in Bamako used to host the biggest informal IDP camps in the capital city, but it was actually completely destroyed by fire in April 2020 and again in February 2022. So if [the appellant] landed at Bamako airport and was left to his own devices, he could try to get accommodation and food support from AME for three days [only] if he proves he wants to return to his place of origin, which would prove difficult given the current security situation in Kidal, especially because of the prevalence of hijacking on the main road from Bamako to Kidal.

Otherwise, if he is to stay in Bamako and with no alternative, he will have no choice but to sleep on the streets as he did for years in the UK, or to try to find a place to stay in one of the numerous slums at the outskirts of the city, which overall would most certainly further damage his mental health. Even if mental health structures remain concentrated in Bamako, mental health is still under-resourced there, with very low specialized workforce. Also, primary healthcare professionals are unable to diagnose and manage people with mental disorders due to insufficient training.” [Emphasis added]

25. The HTML link to the source for the running water and electricity issue leads to an article in Le Monde Afrique on 9 December 2020 entitled Au Mali, l’errance sans fin des déplacés de Tessit and refers to persons displaced from Tessit to Gao in eastern Mali. Gao is 1189km (a 17 hour drive) from the capital Bamako on the western side of the country. Bamako is not mentioned in the article at all. The HTML link to the AME website as a source for only three days of support does not bring up that article at all. It leads to more recent, and older, information but the article relied upon is missing.

26. The only other consideration of the situation in Bamako is in Dr Rodet’s Conclusion at [4]:

“In conclusion and in my expert opinion, without employment prospects due to [his] limited formal education, lack of social network, and a dire economic and security situation, he will not be able to live safely in Kidal nor to find sustainable employment and cover basic needs such as housing, food and health care if he lives in Bamako. In my opinion, I thus consider ‘unduly harsh’ for [the appellant] to relocate with a high risk of being left destitute in Mali.”
Other country materials
27. The appellant’s bundle contains the 9 August 2019 UNHCR Position on Returns to Mali. This predates the August 2020 coup and is thus of limited assistance. It reinforces both Gao and Kidal as areas of conflict and insecurity. UNHCR has called on countries not to forcibly return Malians from Gao, Timbuktu, Kidal, Taoudenni, Manaka, Mopti, Segou and Sikasso.

28. On 9 December 2021, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) recorded that the number of Malians facing hunger had almost tripled during the pandemic, with 1.2 million Malians in food crisis, the highest levels of hunger recorded since 2012.

29. The remaining passages identified as essential reading deal with conditions in Mali generally, which has problems of poverty and hunger, with decreasing international support. On 9 January 2022, the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) advised against all travel to Timbuktu, Kidal, Gao, Mopti and Sigou, and all but essential travel to the rest of Mali, including Bamako. The FCDO considered that terrorists were ‘very likely to try to carry out attacks in Mali, including interest he capital Bamako’.

30. On 11 January 2022, the Voice of America News indicated that West African sanctions had been imposed on Mali, after the country’s military government postponed elections. The sanctions would block all but essential commercial and financial transactions, with a view to pressuring the military government to hold promised elections in February 2022. Ordinary Malians would suffer in consequence.

31. The same day, the UN News Centre recorded that the UN Security Council had warned of an ‘endless cycle of instability’, with insecurity worse, the humanitarian situation having deteriorated, and more than 1.8 million people expected to need food assistance in 2022. The population of Mali is estimated to be almost 21 million people.

32. The number of IDPs had risen sharply from 216000 in 2020 to over 400000 in 2021. In all, the UNHCR recorded 2.1 million displaced persons in Mali at the end of 2021, and on 27 January 2022, UNHCR reported that the latest estimates indicated that the number of people facing severe food insecurity had tripled. By 14 February 2022, with the elections still not having taken place, UNHCR noted that about 7.5 million Malians were in need of assistance, with the security crisis ‘expanding to the southern region’.

33. On 29 March 2022, the UK Foreign office in a statement for the interactive dialogue with the independent UNHCR expert on Mali said this:

“We are deeply concerned by the deteriorating situation in Mali. We have noted recent reports of a surge in human rights violations and abuses, including by members of the Malian armed forces. The Malian authorities must ensure that all perpetrators are held accountable. We also call on the authorities to commit to holding elections as soon as possible.”

34. On 12 April 2022, the Africa Defense Forum (ADF) said that insecurity, hunger, drought, inflation and poverty ‘haunt Malian civilians daily’, following increasing isolation from the international community. Elections were still not being actively planned and humanitarian groups were ‘sounding alarms about rising hunger’ and rising violence against civilians. France had withdrawn from Mali for 6 months in February 2022. Harvests were reduced in 2021 because of a shorter rainy season and drought: the number of people dealing with hunger in Mali had tripled in 2021 to 1.2 million.

35. The US State Department Report for 2021, published on 12 April 2022, sounded a more optimistic note about the position for IDPs:

“The Ministry of Health and Social Development registered IDPs and the government assisted IDPs. IDPs generally lived with relatives, friends, or in rented accommodations. Most IDPs resided in urban areas and had access to food, water, and other forms of assistance. …Aid groups provided humanitarian assistance to IDPs residing throughout the country, as access permitted. ”

36. The US State Department Report noted that 93% of workers worked in the informal sector, according to the ILO. They worked in agriculture (cotton picking and rice growing), gold mining, transport, financial services, restaurants, markets, hotels, beauty salons, tailoring and private education. Pay was low, and such work was much more vulnerable to income loss during the pandemic. Violations of minimum wage and overtime laws were common. There was no unemployment or retirement insurance, nor any social protection (wages, hours, health and safety at work) or inspection.
Appellant’s submissions
37. The appellant’s submissions are contained in Ms Khan’s skeleton argument and her oral clarification thereof. Ms Khan had sight of Mr Kotas’ submission for the respondent, which was served the day before the hearing, when preparing her own submission which was served early on the hearing day itself.
38. Ms Khan summarised the facts found by the First-tier Judge, which are not disputed. Those which are relevant to the case as now put are as follows:
The appellant was born in Gao hospital and lived in Kidal all his life until he came to the UK.
He is married, and his wife still lives in Mali.
His own family were killed by armed groups in 2012.
He has never been to Bamako.
He knows nobody in Bamako and has no links or ties there.
Life in Bamako will not be easy; it will be harsh.
39. The appellant’s case is that there is still an internal armed conflict in Kidal. He does not now contend that there is an internal armed conflict in Bamako: his case now is that it would be unduly harsh to expect him to return and live in Bamako as an internal flight option. The skeleton argument therefore focused on internal flight.
40. The appellant relied on Dr Rodet’s report, not just for its sourced comments but also for her overall expertise in migration. The camp where the appellant was likely to end up was on waste land, in unsanitary conditions, with a shortage of water.
41. The appellant relied on the evidence above, but argued that little weight should be placed on the US State Department Report, to the extent to which it differed from the other evidence. The US State Department Report was not sourced. It was corroborative of the UNHCR position in that it confirmed that most internally displaced people (IDPs) lived with relations and friends, or in rented accommodation. The evidence of Dr Rodet and of the UNHCR should be preferred. The appellant also relied on the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office advice of 9 January 2022 summarised above.
42. The appellant submitted that the evidence showed that Mali was politically volatile, and the humanitarian crisis was deteriorating, due to the socio-economic impact of Covid-19, higher costs of living, loss of income, and reduced remittances to the country from abroad. Cereal prices were exceptionally high and there was reduced funding to assist those in need. The number of people facing food insecurity had tripled in 2021 and in January 2022, sanctions were imposed by West Africa on Mali which would increase suffering for ordinary citizens in Mali.
43. Return to Bamako would be unduly harsh for this appellant. The appeal should be allowed.
Respondent’s submissions

44. In practice, as Mr Kotas recognised in the respondent’s skeleton argument, the appellant will be returned to Modibo Keita International Airport near Bamako. He will not have to travel in order to exercise an internal relocation option to Bamako.

45. Mr Kotas acknowledged that the UNHCR did not consider it appropriate for individuals to relocate internally to Bamako unless they had ‘close and strong links’ there. He recognised the appellant’s unchallenged evidence that he has never been to Bamako, knows nobody there, and has no links or ties to Bamako. Mr Kotas invited me to depart from the UNHCR guidance: see HF(Iraq) and others v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2013] EWCA Civ 1276, HK (Iraq) and others v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] EWCA Civ 1871.

46. Mr Kotas further argued that Dr Rodet’s report should be given little weight as the sources were not correctly reported and the reference to mental health issues did not appear to relate to the appellant. The 2021 US State Department Report’s treatment of the IDP question should be given weight.

47. The appellant was a single adult male with no known health issues or disabilities and was a member of the majority ethnic group. He was literate, and had worked as a labourer both in Mali and on his journey to the UK, picking cotton and assisting traders. In conjunction with receiving humanitarian aid, he could seek work in the informal economy, in agriculture, which would enable him adequately to sustain and support himself.
Analysis
48. I begin by considering what weight I can give to Dr Rodet’s report. In view of its generic nature, the reference to mental health problems which the appellant does not have, and the concerns I have about the inaccurate summary of the source materials relied upon, I find that I can place little weight on Dr Rodet’s report, save where the other sources corroborate it.
49. The other sources are clear that there is a very poor humanitarian situation in Mali generally, and that relocation to Bamako is not practicable save for those with family or other close links with the capital city. Having regard to the evidence overall, I am satisfied that it would be unduly harsh for this appellant to be returned to Bamako, where he has never visited or lived, and has no connections.
50. The appeal is therefore allowed.

DECISION

51. For the foregoing reasons, my decision is as follows:

The making of the previous decision involved the making of an error on a point of law.
I set aside the previous decision. I remake the decision by allowing the appeal.

Signed Judith AJC Gleeson Date: 1 July 2022
Upper Tribunal Judge Gleeson