| Simon Roughneen, Irish Times, 6th March
2006
Letter from Darfur: The Roman philosopher Seneca
said "merely to live is an act of courage". Three years
after the onset of the Darfur conflict in Sudan, courage is still
needed - and demonstrated - by Darfur's war displaced.
And courage is still needed by those inside the apparent sanctuary
provided by the many large camps for those who were forced to abandon
their homes and move elsewhere in their country - internally-displaced
people (IDPs) in humanitarian parlance.
The Darfur conflict began militarily in February 2003 when the
rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) launched attacks on El-Fasher
and Golo, further south in Darfur. Protesting at what they saw as
marginalisation by Sudan's central government, the rebels' initial
success incurred government reprisals.
Counter-insurgency activity directed at civilians followed, conducted
by the Janjaweed militia. As a result, more than 200,000 Darfurians
were killed, two million people were forced from their homes into
camps, and widespread accounts of rape and sexual violence emerged
in various media, NGO and international organisation reports.
On Saturday morning at Kassab camp, outside Kutum town in northern
Darfur, more than 50 patients are awaiting treatment at a GOAL clinic,
one of two provided by the Irish NGO to service a camp where 18,000
IDPs have been resident, most for at least two years, some for three.
Seven boys aged between 12 and 15 sit waiting for treatment for
conditions varying from football injuries to stomach pains and fever
symptoms.
Mohammed is 15 and thinks he just has a cold. While waiting to
see the doctor he says that he does not always have enough food
and feels weaker than he did when he was living in his village.
It is 32 degrees Celsius outside and he sits beneath a tree in the
yard, shaded from the sub-Saharan sun.
After a while he says: "Sometimes people come here at night,
sometimes they steal things, sometimes they kill people. Just two
weeks ago, a shooting took place near my shelter. Janjaweed came
into the camp and did it."
Kultum, a mother of six, is sitting in the waiting area. Her daughter,
Tahani, sits impassively beside her, one eye almost glued shut due
to an infection.
Her mother tells how it is "not safe to even visit your neighbour
here at night", adding: "People are killed in their tents."
During December of last year and this January an upsurge in fighting
displaced a further 30,000 people amid a backdrop of stop-start
peace negotiations in Abuja, the Nigerian capital.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has urged the Security Council
to put a UN peacekeeping force into Darfur to replace the under-funded
African Union mission. Mr Annan has requested western input into
the peacekeeping force, but Sudan's government rejects any non-African
involvement in peacekeeping in Darfur.
As things stand, the African Union force can only intervene when
directly attacked and it does not have an expansive civilian protection
mandate. Amid the on-off military assaults it is Darfur's people
who suffer when there is no one to protect them.
The insecurity hinders provision of even a basic health service
as well as sanitation and nutrition. Marwa (17) says: "We have
to rely on NGOs for our basic things. For medicine, food, water.
But life here is very difficult. We have food in our villages, on
our farms. But we cannot go there, it is not safe, it will not be
safe for a long time."
Kultum explained: "Nobody is guarding the camp. If you have
one donkey, one goat, they will take it. If you complain, they will
kill you." She added cautiously: "You cannot see who does
it, it is at night. It is too dark."
Three years after the Janjaweed came to his village, which lies
beyond the mountains, more than halfway to the Darfurian regional
capital of El-Fasher, Mohammed feels that there is now no hope,
adding: "We will be here for years."
Kultum says: "Unless there is peace, we cannot go back to
our villages. It is not safe there. It is not always safe here either,
but we have to try and live as best we can."
In Darfur, where safety in the camps is not guaranteed, living
truly requires courage.
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