the northern portion of Gao Region. As such, it includes the three biggest cities of Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal. Demographics Northern Mali has a population density of 1.5 people per square kilometre. The Malian regions claimed by Azawad are listed hereafter (apart from the portion of Mopti Region claimed and occupied by the MNLA). The population figures are from the 2009 census of Mali, taken before Azawadi independence was proclaimed. Since the start of the Tuareg rebellion in January 2012, an estimated 250,000 former inhabitants have fled the territory. Ethnic groups The area was traditionally inhabited by the settled Songhay, and the nomadic Tuareg, Arabs, and Fulas (; ). The ethnic composition of the regions in 1950 (at that time, Kidal Region was a part of Gao Region) and in 2009 is shown in the adjacent diagrams. Languages The languages of Northern Mali include Hassaniya Arabic, Fulfulde and Songhay, Tamashek. French, though not spoken natively, is widely used as a lingua franca, as well as negotiations with the government of Mali and foreign affairs. Religion Most are Muslims, of the Sunni orientations. Most popular in the Tuareg movement and northern Mali as a whole is the Maliki branch of Sunnism, in which traditional opinions and analogical reasoning by later Muslim scholars are often used instead of a strict reliance on hadith as a basis for legal judgment. Ansar Dine follows the Salafi branch of Sunni Islam. They strongly object to praying around the graves of Malikite 'holymen', and burned down an ancient Sufi shrine in Timbuktu, which had been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Most of the 300 Christians who formerly lived in Timbuktu have fled to the South since the rebels captured the town on 2 April 2012. Humanitarian situation The people living in the central and northern Sahelian and Sahelo-Saharan areas of Mali are the country's poorest, according to an International Fund for Agricultural Development report. Most are pastoralists and farmers practicing subsistence agriculture on dry land with poor and increasingly degraded soils. The northern part of Mali suffers from a critical shortage of food and lack of health care. Starvation has prompted about 200,000 inhabitants to leave the region. Refugees in the 92,000-person refugee camp at Mbera, Mauritania, described the Islamists as "intent on imposing an Islam of lash and gun on Malian Muslims." The Islamists in Timbuktu have destroyed about a half-dozen historic above-ground