Darfur - Things Begin to Fall Apart in the Camps

by Michael Bear · 2009-03-05 21:38:00 UTC
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Early reports are coming in about how the Sudanese Government's decision to expel major aid agencies is impacting the camps in Darfur.

As you can imagine, it's not quite rainbows and unicorns.

According to a recent AP report:

"Even before Sudan's president expelled aid groups from Darfur following an international warrant seeking his arrest, diarrhea was spreading among newcomers at one of its largest refugee camps and people waited hours in line for water.

The picture at the Zamzam Camp grew even bleaker Thursday when no aid workers showed up, leaving residents to figure out how they would get life sustaining goods from sorghum seeds to running water and tents for the influx of new refugees.

'We are very concerned,' said Ibrahim Safi, 34, one of 75,000 residents at the camp. 'After God, we only have the organizations.'"

Rob Crilly is on the ground in Darfur, and filed this report with The Times:

"The little hospital built from plastic sheeting and wooden poles is not much to look at. Yet it serves 20,000 of Darfur’s suffering people, offering life-saving medical care to families who fled their homes with nothing.

Yesterday it was closed. Its patients were sent home and doctors and nurses told not to turn up for work. The Sudanese Government, having bombed more than two million people into the camps, is expelling aid workers in retaliation against a world that wants to arrest its President....Outside the hospital – run by the International Rescue Committee until it was ordered out – a mother brushed flies from the face of her daughter. 'My baby is sick,' Fatima Abdulrahmen said. 'She has a fever and I brought her here and now I don’t know what to do. Who will help me now?'

...

In Abu Shouk, home to about 50,000 people, men dressed in dusty jalabayas were hammering at a water pump. This should be the work of water and sanitation engineers from Oxfam. 'We don’t know how to fix it,' said one man wielding a foot-long spanner, 'but we are thirsty.'"

He also describes how Sudanese authorities have begun confiscating aid agency supplies.

(You can also follow Rob's reports on Twitter - @robcrilly)

Again, what a fucking mess.

[Photo of Kalma IDP camp in Darfur from USAID]

Michael Bear
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