At Camps in South Darfur, Security and Sanitation Top the List of Needs
4 October 2004
Many of the displaced people living in temporary shelters around Kass in South Darfur would like to go home. Kass is too hot, too crowded, and people no longer have animals to milk or fields to farm, they say. But until there is peace in Darfur, they will not leave their makeshift camps.
Plains dotted with baobab trees, white-robed men riding high on camels, the shouts of ragged children - these are some of the sights and sounds Oxfam aid worker Adrian McIntyre noted on a recent trip to South Darfur. But one impression from his visit to the camps for displaced people is clearer than all the others: the longing Darfurians have for security.
It has been 19 months since violence first wracked the Darfur region of western Sudan, forcing more than 1.4 million people from their homes. Many would like to go back - if only they could feel safe. Here is Adrian’s account of the few days he spent among them recently, and the fears they continue to voice.
"Welcome to Nyala..."
Our plane departs early on a Saturday morning from Sudan’s national airport in Khartoum and flies southwest over 500 miles of desert before landing in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur. The airport here is big enough to land large cargo planes, but on the morning we arrive it is nearly deserted. We collect our bags from the cargo hold beneath the plane. There are no ground staff here, so it’s a do-it-yourself kind of operation. A security official arrives to take a copy of our travel permits for Darfur.
"Welcome to Nyala," he says with a broad grin before directing us to walk across the tarmac in the general direction of the arrivals hall.
The arriving humanitarian workers are met by drivers from our respective agencies, and we all climb into our Land Rovers and head into the town of Nyala. We will meet each other again in the coming days - in camps for displaced people, at coordination meetings organized by the United Nations, or in the dusty roadside cafés that are the epitome of Nyala nightlife.
Not far from the airport we pass a busy building site in a large patch of red sand alongside the road. A number of large green tents are being erected to provide a home for the African Union troops. They have come to Darfur to report on whether the ceasefire agreement signed in April is holding. But, unfortunately, we hear reports of fresh fighting and violence on a regular basis and everyone tells us that the ceasefire is broken.
The Oxfam office in Nyala is bustling with activity. Oxfam has had an office in this city for nearly 20 years, and we have some very experienced Sudanese staff with excellent knowledge of the area. Many of them were working on long-term development projects when the conflict erupted here in Darfur 19 months ago. The scope of Oxfam’s work has changed in response to the humanitarian crisis, and now we’re working to provide emergency water, sanitation, and public health. Normally Nyala has a population of 190,000, but over the past year an extra 60,000 displaced people have settled in camps around the city’s perimeter after fleeing from attacks on their villages in the outlying rural areas.
At night we eat at one of the local restaurants favored by international aid workers here in Nyala. It also seems quite popular with the local police and security services. A uniformed soldier arrives in a black-and-blue camouflaged pick-up truck to collect several huge platters of takeout food for his mates at the checkpoint down the road. The restaurant is really no more than a bunch of plastic tables and chairs set up in a dirt alley off the main street. We have a filling meal of grilled chicken with salt and chili, watercress, and fresh unleavened bread. There’s no electricity at the guesthouse this evening, so we crawl under our mosquito nets and go to bed early.
At Kalma, Questioning a Common Refrain
On Sunday, like every day, a team of Oxfam humanitarian workers travels to Kalma camp, about 45 minutes east of Nyala. The road to Kalma is a rutted dirt track through semiarid, undulating plains punctuated by a few rugged hills. There are lots of acacia trees, woody shrubs, and scrub brush, with patches of grass and the occasional baobab tree. We drive alongside a rarely used railway towards this huge tent city. A sea of blue and white plastic sheeting provided by the UN and foreign donors is visible first on the left side of the car. Then individual domed shelters made from cardboard, plastic, and twigs appear.
Kalma camp is packed with people - old women, old men, mothers, young babies, lots of kids, but very few young men. We’re told that many of the men between 15 and 40 are dead - killed in attacks earlier this year. Some of the survivors are working as wage laborers in nearby fields or in the newly established market on the other side of the camp. Whatever the reason, it is clear that at least 75 percent of the people at Kalma are women and children.
Dozens of small, ragged-looking children run towards our vehicle, grinning and yelling, "Okay! Okay!" This is the never-ending refrain one hears in camps throughout Darfur, including places where conditions are desperate and things are clearly not okay.
People Hunger for Safety in Kass
On Monday, we travel to Kass, a small market town about 65 miles northwest of Nyala along a paved but potholed road that runs all the way to West Darfur. Like many of the larger towns in Darfur, Kass has become a place of refuge from insecurity and attacks on the surrounding villages. The town’s original population of 30,000 has swelled by an additional 43,000 displaced people. Most of them are crowded into makeshift shelters in the compounds of public buildings such as schools. There are 13 camps located throughout Kass town, each named after the school whose property they occupy. Some of the displaced people are staying with relatives in dusty front yards and crowded houses.
Traveling by road in Darfur is risky. In the last few weeks, there have been several armed robberies on the road to Kass, so we are being extra careful. Oxfam takes precautions to maintain the safety of our staff, and fortunately we have not experienced any such incidents. We only travel in convoys of two vehicles or more, and all of our vehicles are clearly marked with Oxfam logos and flying Oxfam flags. Good communications are essential as well, and we make radio contact with the office in Nyala every 30 minutes to report that we are safe and to check conditions on the road ahead. We do not use armed protection, but rather try very hard to gain acceptance by the communities in which we work. Our commitment to fundamental humanitarian principles, such as impartiality and independence, helps us gain people’s trust. That trust is a key factor in ensuring the safety of our staff.
They politely thank Oxfam for providing latrines and clean water... And then they reiterate that the militias must be disarmed, and the murder, rape, and banditry must stop.
All the people we speak to in Kass say that their first need is better security - especially for women, who are often attacked, beaten, and raped when they venture beyond the town’s perimeter to collect firewood. Time and time again they make this point.
They politely thank Oxfam for providing latrines and clean water, and they thank Médecins Sans Frontières for setting up health clinics and therapeutic feeding centers. They are grateful for the limited rations of grain and biscuits they receive from the World Food Program, although they regret the absence of lentils, salt, and oil from this month’s food distribution. And then they reiterate that the militias must be disarmed, and the murder, rape, and banditry must stop. Only then will they be able to go home to their villages and begin to rebuild their lives.
A New Campsite Holds Fear
Recently, there has been tension between the displaced people and some of the long-term residents in Kass. Parents want the schools to reopen, but the displaced people want to continue living in the school compounds. Oxfam is trying to relieve the tension by giving some people plastic sheeting so they can move out of the school buildings and into the courtyards. There is a new camp across the wadi, a seasonal riverbed, that the government of Sudan has been pressuring them to move to for the past few months. But the displaced people are adamant that they won’t leave the safety of the town.
Under the shade of a huge tree we drink sweet tea with the commissioner of Kass. He talks of the enormous demands on his small town and gestures across the wadi to the new campsite that the government has prepared. He knows that displaced people are too afraid to move there, but he still wants them to leave the school buildings free for lessons.
"Maybe they’ll go home someday soon," he suggests. "Can Oxfam help encourage them to return?"
We take this opportunity to explain our position: that people who have fled their villages have the right to return home to their land, but that they must be able to do so voluntarily and only when they feel it is safe. We state unequivocally that displaced people must be able to make free and informed decisions about their future - without bribery, intimidation, coercion, or the use of force. The commissioner smiles and nods knowingly. He has heard a similar message from all the international aid agencies working in Kass. He says Oxfam has a good understanding of the situation, and agrees that no one should force people to move.
We ask several groups of displaced people in Kass how they feel about the new campsite across the wadi. Their response is a mixture of anger and fear. Some of the strongest reactions come from women, who explain that many of them have been attacked and raped over there. We ask whether the policemen at the new site will protect them. The men scoff at this suggestion, saying that they have no confidence in the ability of the police to ensure their safety. They explain patiently, as if to small children, that Darfur is still very dangerous. They are convinced that they will be attacked if they move across the wadi.
More Water is on the Way
After security, what people here need most is improved sanitation. This is an area where Oxfam is definitely making a difference. When Oxfam first arrived in Kass, people told us they needed toilets because everyone was defecating outside. Human waste and flies were contaminating food and water, and many people were getting sick.
Oxfam has installed more than 700 toilets in the main campsites throughout the town. To keep the toilets clean, Oxfam pays a small wage to a local "latrine attendant" who helps clean the latrines and educate the community about proper hygiene. It is interventions like this that will reduce the risk of life-threatening diseases such as cholera.
The Oxfam office in Kass is run by two women named Vicky. The public health promoter is known as Vicky One and the water engineer as Vicky Two, since she arrived second. The Sudanese staff finds that it’s easier to use these numbers rather than foreign family names.
Vicky Two takes us to a camp on the north side of Kass called Ardiba where Oxfam plans to install a large water tank. Many of the camps for displaced people in Kass already have hand pumps, while others have plastic water bladders or tanks. But none of them have enough clean water for all the people. We talk with the local leaders - the sheiks - in Ardiba camp to decide where to put the new tank.
Vicky Two also chats with the sheiks about the new wells that Oxfam will be drilling next week. Everyone is pleased that soon there will be more clean water, but both Vickys are still worried about the "donkey boys." These kids charge a tiny sum to cart water by donkey to people’s homes. The Oxfam team is trying to find a way to ensure that the donkey boys can still earn a living after the new wells and tanks are installed.
Old or New, Camps Serve as Shelters Only - Not Homes
The displaced people living Ardiba camp have been here for more than a year. When they arrived, there were plenty of local building materials available, so they were able to construct mud and thatch huts for themselves, similar to the ones they fled from when their villages were attacked last year. Ardiba may not look like a typical camp, but the displaced people here are just as desperate for food, medicine, clean water, and sanitation as those living nearby in makeshift shelters covered with plastic sheeting.
Most of the other campsites in Kass are much newer than Ardiba, set up since the spring when new waves of displaced people arrived. By the time these newcomers reached Kass, all the local building materials were depleted. They were forced to build rudimentary shelters from sticks and reeds, covered with bits of cardboard and some plastic sheeting provided by humanitarian agencies.
One evening in Kass, a fierce wind whips up and a fantastic thunder and lightning storm begins on the horizon. Dust quickly obscures the usually bright stars, and ominous dark clouds move in from the west. There’s no electricity in the town and the little Oxfam guesthouse is still waiting for a gas stove, so we drive to a café near the security checkpoint on the edge of town. The ladies at "Checkpoint Chicken," as the team has come to call this simple restaurant, provide us with a quick but sandy dinner of chicken and tomatoes before we race back home ahead of the storm. The facilities at our guesthouse are extremely basic, but we are grateful for even the most minimal comforts.
As the rain starts hammering down on the tin roof over our heads, we crawl under our mosquito nets for a fitful night’s sleep. My heart goes out to the children I met earlier in the day, who must be having a far more miserable experience of this storm as they huddle under their rickety, leaky shelters in the cold, wet Darfur night.
The Pulse of Life - Lost for Now
We return to the South Darfur capital along the same bumpy road, driving through miles of hot, dusty plains and fields of scrub brush interspersed with clusters of thorny acacia trees. Along the way we see two large groups of men in white robes and headscarves riding camels, with large herds of cattle and goats. People often say that such men belong to the armed militias who attacked their villages, killed their relatives, burned their houses, and stole their livestock. But these particular camel riders could just as well be from one of the nomadic tribes that haven’t been directly involved in the conflict and carry on as they always have, herding their animals in this remote and undeveloped part of western Sudan.
Back in Nyala, we meet some colleagues from the United Nations who have just returned from a field visit to Muhajariyya, east of the capital. They tell us sadly that they saw lots of people who had been wounded in recent attacks.
Arriving at the Oxfam guesthouse, we’re greeted by a series of wonderful noises and smells. The rhythmic sounds of shaking, sieving, and drumming are coming from the courtyard near the kitchen. We turn the corner to find a Sudanese coffee-making session under way. Fatouma is grinding some freshly roasted coffee beans with a wooden mortar and pestle. The pounding of the pestle lays down the primary beat - thump swish swish, chickety thump, swish swish - while Aisha, the second cook, adds the melody with some soft singing and clinking of tiny coffee glasses. The coffee is delicious, and we’re lucky to have caught a glimpse into what the pulse of life in Darfur could have been like before this conflict began.
