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Displaced Darfuris Blame Gov't, Rebels for Hardship
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Some
16,000 Darfurians fled to Zamzam camp
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By
Imam El-Leithy, IOL Correspondent
AL-FASHIR,
August 18 (IslamOnline.net) - Polluted drinking water, scarce foodstuffs
and no means of transportation are the most common problems displaced
people in two large Northern Darfur camps complain of.
The
more than 50,000 displaced people living in Zamzam and Abu Shouk camps
blamed both parties of the conflict, the Sudanese government and the
rebel groups, for the humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur.
"It
is unbearable; no clean water or enough food for the 11,000 internally
displaced people (IDPs) here," Hussein Ismail who lives in Zamzam
Camp, some 15 kilometers of Northern Darfur capital, Al-Fashir, told
IslamOnline.net.
"We
wait months for one doctor to visit the camp," Ismail said.
UN
medical experts in Darfur have voiced a few days ago concerns over an
outbreak of Hepatitis E which has killed 22 people, saying the disease
was spreading quickly because of poor sanitation in the camps and
pregnant women are most at risk of infection.
Ismail
also complained humanitarian relief organizations are underestimating
number of IDPs in the camp, putting the true figure at 16,000.
He
noted the clearly-evident disparity is addressed by donations, where
families give out part of their allotted relief supplies to unregistered
ones.
The
United Nations estimates at least 2m people need food aid in the region,
but badly-needed water and sanitation equipment are also in acute
demand.
Press
reports have said there are more than one million displaced people in
Darfur who had been forced to fled their villages to avoid a more than
one year conflict between Arab and African Muslim tribes mainly on
pasture and farming lands.
Ismail
demanded both the Sudanese government and the rebels to immediately stop
the fighting and sign a peace accord "so that farmers can return to
their villages and rebuild their homes again".
No
Rape
Tough
living conditions aside, refugees in the Zamzam and Abu Shouk camps deny
genocide or mass rapes by allegedly pro-government militias in the
western Sudanese region.
"What
happens is that government forces thrust into my village to eject rebels
out of it, torching houses after ordering its evacuation," Ismail
said.
"They
did not hurt those fleeing the area."
That
many others were of the same view contradicted with claims touted by the
United States and relief organizations of mass rape by government-backed
militiamen locally known as Janjaweed - a term derived from the Arabic
for "genies on horseback".
Hussein
Gezairy, the regional WHO office director, had
told IOL while in a fact-finding mission in Darfur that reports
submitted by the world health watchdog "have not referred to acts
of ethnic cleansing or mass rapes as claimed by western human rights
organizations".
However,
he acknowledged a "humanitarian catastrophe" gripping the
province aggravated by fighting between rebels and the government
forces.
On
Thursday, July 22, the US House Of Representatives unanimously passed a
resolution describing the situation in Darfur a "genocide."
However,
Sudanese officials and experts have refuted
the claims and warned of plots targeting the unity of the
oil-exporting country.
Hard
To Live
Moving
across the two camps, humanitarian stories show up with several IDPs
tell of a hard journey from their burnt villages to the camp, where they
also face hard conditions.
Hussein
Sago was the mayor of Sueny village in Kutum in Northern Darfur, which
had had to flee in September 2003.
"I
fled with my family on foot to Kurma province in Northern Darfur, where
we were forced to leave a few months later with heightened violence
between the government forces and rebels."
A
breadwinner of six-member family, Sago stays with 40,000 others in Abu
shouk camp, 80 percent of them women and children getting by on minimum
amounts of humanitarian supplies.
Sago
said relief organizations are handing out a wheat mixture to the
displaced people, but he lamented that women could not know how to cook
it.
He
has another grim memory to recall, the day his son died at the camp.
"I
had had no money to ferry him to Al-Fashir Hospital, seven kilometers
away from the camp. His temperature fatally went up as we were waiting
for the camp cars."
Overall,
the UN estimates the costs of humanitarian relief at US 240 million
dollars.
To
date, less than half of that has been pledged. WHO requires about US$
1.2 million per month to carry out its operations in the three Darfur
States.
Hope
For Return
"We
need not only food and water, but also work and money," the former
mayor said.
"I
could not afford buying clothes, send my sons to school, which requires
2000-3000 dinars a day just for their transportation," he added.
Most
of displaced men and women at the camp wait for the day they would move
back to their villages and restore their property.
"But,
peace should be first restored to the western region," according to
Sago, who lamented the loss of his village mayor status.
He
blamed both parties of the conflict for the humanitarian catastrophe in
Darfur.
"Rebels
hit the government and hided in the village, and the government reacted
with attacking and burning the village for rebels not to return back.
The
conclusion: "We are the ones who lost all."
The
United Nations says up to 50,000 people have died as a result of the
conflict. The government says the figure does not exceed 5,000.
In
July, the Security Council approved a resolution urging Sudan to put a
stop to the violence by the end of August.
UN
special envoy Jan Pronk will tour Darfur with Sudanese officials during
the period from August 26-29 to check whether Khartoum has met its
commitments to begin reining in the militias and ensure aid workers'
access to what the world body says is the world's worst humanitarian
disaster.
Click
to Watch Videos of:
1.
One of relief tents at
Zamzam Camp
2.
A scene from the camp
3.
Peace Psalm 1
4.
Peace Psalm 2
5.
Immigration Psalm
6.
Immigration
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