A former Malian presidential aide, as well as several other people involved with preserving the manuscripts, said that the documents had been evacuated into a safe location in 2012 before the fighters invaded Timbuktu. U.S. based book preservation expert Stephanie Diakité and Dr. Abdel Kader Haidara, curator of one of the most important libraries of Timbuktu, a position handed down in his family for generations, organized the evacuation of the manuscripts to Bamako in the south of Mali. Timbuktu has a long tradition of celebrating and honoring family manuscript collections. It is traditional for a family member to “swear publicly that he will protect the library for as long as he lives.” During the evacuation process, Haidara relied on local families to hide the Ahmed Baba Institute's manuscript collection in their homes before the texts were ultimately transported to Bamako. The evacuation was supported by international organizations, such as the Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development, whose initial commitment was followed by financial support from other organisations such as the Doen Foundation and Ford Foundation. Abdel Kader thanked SAVAMA-DCI and their partners in a letter for enabling the evacuation of the manuscripts to the cities in the south of the country and supporting their storage.