said.

She wiped tears from her face as she remembered the refugees she visited in the camps in neighbouring Niger. "We don't have oil, we don't have all this mineral wealth, but we are still human beings," she said.

More than 400,000 people have been forced to leave their homes in the north of the country since insurgents began moving through towns and villages looting and raping earlier this year. About 50,000 are in Bamako.

In a small hall in the centre of the city, 15 displaced women share a meal of jollof rice. Aramata Maiga, 62, explained how rebels looted her clothing shop in Gao, leaving only the chairs. "They are killing soldiers. They are killing citizens. They are killing everyone," she said.

Maiga has been sharing a room with hersix children at a friend's house for eight months. She has no idea whether her home and business are still standing, but she's tired of "living in hell here in Bamako" and wants to go back to "fight to free my place".

At the chaotic Banke bus station in eastern Bamako, smoke-spewing buses leave for Gao and Timbuktu every day full of people returning to check on their property, livestock and, in some cases, stay behind in rebel-held areas – despite the risk.

"Many adults are returning to participate in the liberation in order to be there on D-day when the army returns," said Amadou Touré, a deputy mayor in Bamako responsible for registering the internally displaced people in his region.

Touré criticised the delayed military intervention. "It speaks of an