More than four years of fighting in that remote western region of Sudan has forced 2.5 million people from their homes. Many of them have flocked to overcrowded camps for safety. Others have squeezed into towns bursting with displaced people.
As the co-founder of a highly successful fundraising initiative, Nick helped to raise more than $300,000 for the people of Darfur. But not content to stop there, he approached us here at Oxfam with an idea: If he could visit Darfur he could help create a vital link between a growing group of youth activists here in the United States and Darfur teens forced to spend years in the camps.
Yanked from their homes and villages—and the social and civic framework those places provided—Darfur's youth are now growing up in an environment riddled with fear and boredom. Nick heard about their hunger for places to gather, for simple pleasures like balls with which to play sports, for basic improvements to health standards, for books, for safe ways to get to school—and the list goes on.
Before Nick left, we asked him what the single most important thing was that he wanted to accomplish on this mission. He said he hoped to bring back an experience that would touch the hearts of American teenagers. He wanted to find a way for his friends—and teenagers like them—to identify with the youth of Darfur and feel moved to help them as peers.
His personal goal? "To define us as a generation that takes action and one that cares about such important causes as the one in Darfur."
]]>I went to Darfur as a youth ambassador for Oxfam America—to learn about the lives of young people trapped in camps and overcrowded towns by the conflict that has riddled the region since early 2003. Some of them had spoken to me with passion about the need for security in a place where allegiances shift regularly and lawlessness rules. Whenever I heard gunshots shatter the air, their words came back to me with a whole new urgency. This was what they had been talking about. I felt their fear.
Growing up in a quiet hill town in western Massachusetts, I was not prepared for the level of violence that clouds the lives of people in Darfur. And after speaking to youths in camps and villages, it was clear to me that the first priority for the region must be a cease-fire. The world's politicians must do more to make those responsible for the conflict stop attacking civilians.
My journey had started in Khartoum, Sudan's sprawling capital, which lies at the intersection of the White and Blue Niles. I had acclimated myself to Sudanese culture with the help of exceptional individuals such as Saleh Majid, Oxfam America's program coordinator in Sudan, and Ahmed Hamad, Oxfam's driver. I had the opportunity to visit Saleh's community, Omdurman, and represent the United States in a game of soccer with the local boys. I did not stand a chance!
Ahmed exposed me to Sudanese culture by taking me to eat at Sudanese restaurants, showing me around the capital, and teaching me the Arabic names for everything. One day, he took me to the banks of the Nile River outside of Khartoum where locals come to picnic and wash their cars in the Nile. Some of Ahmed's friends explained with gusto that, "The situation in Darfur is normal!"
However, once I finally made it to Darfur, I discovered that the needs of youths there were far more serious than I had expected based on those Khartoum conversations. With Saleh, I traveled to areas such as El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur. Nearby, three camps filled with thatch huts and plastic-roofed shelters serve as home for nearly 200,000 displaced people. In the Abu Shouk camp, the youths who I had the opportunity to speak to asked for the tools to be able to rebuild their communities. They wanted things like better education at the secondary school level, vocational training rather than strictly intellectual education, and places for youths to convene so they could socialize and exchange ideas. In Darfur, people my age—the region's next generation of leaders—are terribly frustrated by their lack of representation. All community decisions are made by elders, known as umdas, and many of the youths feel that the ideas of these older leaders are outdated.
At Abu Shouk, I formed a special bond with the young man who helped me as an interpreter—a man just a few years older than me whose family had fled their village and was now living in the camp. His name was Ahmed Yousif. He told me about his own journey to the camp—about the theft of his family's livestock and his horse—and about the education he had received in El Fasher. Ahmed was one of the lucky ones in Darfur: He had graduated from the local university. I was overwhelmed by his strength and stunned—not for the first time—at the capacity of the human spirit to endure hardship.
Traveling with Saleh deeper into Darfur, we visited the town of Kebkabiya—a place made mostly of the traditional, round, thatch huts that I had seen so often in Darfur, as well as some brick and wood structures. The town is surrounded by rolling plains and jagged mountains that turn from green to dusty red, depending on the season. After the crisis in Darfur erupted more than four years ago, about 60,000 people from the surrounding area fled from their villages to seek safety in Kebkabiya. Oxfam is working in the area to provide for the needs of the community.
I talked to boys and girls from a secondary school class in Kebkabiya who, after asking first for increased security and a ceasefire, requested such simple things as shovels to fill in standing pools of water in their school yard that serve as breeding grounds to mosquitoes that can carry malaria. Many of the young men and women complained that they could not afford to go to school, that there were very few books, and that they had to pay fees to purchase the few that are available. Transportation to and from school is difficult due to seasonal streams, called wadis, that often block roads.
However, all of the youths that I spoke to in Darfur shared a common resilience and belief that they were capable of lifting themselves out of the poverty and despair that has now fallen across the region. Provided they have a forum to share ideas and be heard by the umdas, as well as basic tools such as vocational training and continued humanitarian support, the next generation of men and women in Darfur are confident they will be able to build their communities back stronger and better than before the crisis began.
]]>The agencies—Concern Worldwide, Goal, International Rescue Committee (IRC), Norwegian Refugee Council, Oxfam International, and World Vision—have demanded that all parties urgently agree to, and maintain, a ceasefire with immediate effect, and ensure that aid workers are able to reach people in need.
“If the deterioration is allowed to continue, the impact on civilians could be devastating,” said Paul Smith-Lomas, a regional director for Oxfam. “With new displacements and attacks, the presence of aid agencies is more important than ever. Yet every day brings one huge blow after another to aid efforts.”
With access to displaced people already at its lowest point since mid-2004, five major areas suffered significant withdrawals of staff members in the first week of December alone: El Fasher and Kutum in North Darfur; El Daein and Shearia in South Darfur; and Kulbus in West Darfur. Although hopefully temporary, such evacuations are becoming more frequent, restricting the humanitarian response in a region where nearly four million people are now dependent on aid agencies for essential services such as food, water, and health care. Humanitarian agencies in eastern Chad are also finding it increasingly difficult to operate.
“The whole region is increasingly complex and uncertain,” said Patty Swahn, the International Rescue Committee’s regional director. “While we all remain fully committed to helping the people of Darfur, frequent evacuations of programs are making it incredibly difficult to deliver aid effectively. Blame cannot be laid solely on one particular group. Everyone involved in the conflict must respect humanitarian operations.”
Examples of the violence that has spread across the region since Dec. 1 include:
South Darfur:
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North Darfur:
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West Darfur:
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Recent months have seen a steady deterioration in the ability agencies have to reach people in need. In November, one agency was unable to properly access 19 of its 22 program locations, affecting 175,000 people. In Kalma camp in South Darfur, which shelters 90,000 people, agencies are losing one day’s work a week due to rising violence inside the camp.<
p>Since the signing of the Darfur Peace Agreement last May, violence against civilians and aid workers has increased, and an estimated 200,000 or more newly displaced people have arrived in Darfur’s camps. These camps have been the last source of refuge for many civilians, yet now they are increasingly rife with weapons and armed groups. Civilians are suffering doubly because of the violence, which either catches them up directly or prevents aid agencies from providing essential services.
“We have no blankets, no plastic sheeting for shelters, and no security,” said one man recently arrived in Otash camp in South Darfur.
]]>“The crisis in Darfur is a global concern and as a global community we have a responsibility to take action,” said Chris DeWolfe, CEO of MySpace. “MySpace’s reach gives us an extraordinary opportunity to spread the word and empower individuals to help address the horrors in Darfur.”
On Oct. 21, more than 20 Rock For Darfur concerts will be held across North America in an effort to unite artists nationwide during one day of already-planned performances. All bands involved in the Rock for Darfur event will donate portions of ticket proceeds to Oxfam’s relief efforts in Sudan and neighboring Chad. Bands participating in the Rock for Darfur campaign represent all genres including pop, rock, country and reggae and will be performing in all corners of the country.
Rock for Darfur concerts on Oct. 21 include:
Alice in Chains, Winston-Salem, NC, Millennium Center
Ziggy Marley, Medford, OR, Main One Center for the Arts
The Fray, Toronto, Ontario, Kool Haus
TV on the Radio, Philadelphia, PA, Starlight Ballroom
Atreyu, Baltimore, MD, Sonar
+44, Sacramento, CA, The Boardwalk
Secret Machines, San Diego, CA, SOMA
Insane Clown Posse, St. Petersburg, FL, Jannus Landing
Citizen Cope, Seattle, WA, Showbox
Teddy Geiger, Melbourne FL, King Center
Jamie Cullum, Reno, NV, Reno Hilton Theater
Amos Lee, Washington DC, 9:30 club
The Lost Trailers, Atlanta, GA, The Peachtree Tavern
Hotel Café Tour, Louisville, KY, Phoenix Mill Tavern
Slightly Stoopid and Pepper, San Francisco, CA, Warfield
The Wood Brothers, Charleston, SC, The Music Farm
Jars of Clay, Minneapolis, MN, Marantha Hall
Gov’t Mule and Donavon Frankenreiter, Spokane, WA, The Big Easy
Benevento Russo Duo, Asheville, NC, The Orange Peel
Bob Weir & Ratdog, Milwaukee, WI, The Rave
"I've been watching the news reports and it brings tears to my eyes and anger to my heart when I see what is happening in Darfur right now,” said musician Ziggy Marley. “How can we sit by and not find a way to help? Together every little bit will add up.”
The PSA featuring Samuel L. Jackson will air in theaters preceding various Twentieth Century Fox films during the month of October in addition to broadcast, cable and various Internet properties including MySpace which, according to comScore Media Metrics in August 2006, has more than 30 billion page views per month.
The online campaign on the Rock for Darfur profile features video from George Clooney’s recent trip to Darfur, an excerpt from the forthcoming documentary about the crisis, The Devil Came on Horseback, and background information for individuals to host Darfur Dialogues around the country on October 21, the day of the Rock For Darfur concerts. Individuals can contribute to Oxfam’s relief efforts through the page as well.
"More than three years of violence in Darfur has left half the region’s population dependent on international aid for survival, and there are untold thousands more who can't even be reached," said President of Oxfam America, Raymond C. Offenheiser. "Such a catastrophic humanitarian situation will not improve without an end to this brutal conflict. The people of Darfur urgently need - and deserve - our help. It's incredibly heartening that MySpace, which can rally millions of people to this cause, is working so hard to educate the world about this crisis."
Limited edition Rock For Darfur T-shirts are available from SuperExcellent by Krista Allen and are printed on Edun Live shirts. The shirts can be purchased through www.myspace.com/RockForDarfur and www.BandMerch.com/RockForDarfur with all T-shirt profits going to Oxfam. BandMerch is waiving all transaction fees to sell the shirts for program supporters.
]]>The agencies—CARE, International Rescue Committee, Oxfam International, and World Vision—joined together to express alarm at the rising violence and deteriorating humanitarian access since the signing of the Darfur Peace Agreement on May 5. They warned the increasing insecurity is crippling their ability to reach people in need, with potentially disastrous consequences.
Besides the eight deaths, July saw many other aid workers attacked and intimidated, and there were more than 20 incidents of humanitarian vehicles being hijacked or stolen.
“The targeting of humanitarian workers is completely unacceptable,” said Paul Smith-Lomas, the regional director for Oxfam, one of several organizations to have a staff member killed in recent weeks. “Since the signing of the agreement, Darfur has become increasingly tense and violent, which has led to the tragic deaths of far too many civilians and aid workers. A full and comprehensive ceasefire must be implemented immediately.”
Tensions within many of the camps for the region’s two million displaced people have risen steadily due to opposition to the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA). Violence is increasingly quick to break out, putting at risk aid workers who are delivering vital services. Meanwhile, the under-resourced and poorly supported African Union police and troops who are supposed to be providing security appear to have reduced the scope of their efforts to protect civilians since the DPA’s signing.
The four aid agencies called upon those responsible for protecting civilians and creating a secure environment for humanitarian workers, particularly the African Union, to prioritize having a presence around the clock and regular patrols in areas around the camps.
The humanitarian response in Darfur is the largest in the world and has managed to stabilize the horrific health and nutritional conditions that were seen in the early stages of the conflict. However, the agencies warned this response is now under threat. Some areas of Darfur are seeing levels of malnutrition once again on the rise and outbreaks of acute diarrhea in the vast camps.
“The danger is clear. If we cannot access the people who need assistance then the humanitarian situation is going to rapidly deteriorate,” said Kurt Tjossem, a spokesperson for the International Rescue Committee. “ As usual in Darfur, civilians are the ones to suffer, from being attacked, displaced, and also from being denied access to the assistance that they urgently need.”
In the last month, more than 25,000 people have fled their homes in North Darfur in the face of fighting and attacks on their villages. Three and a half million people throughout Darfur are dependent on humanitarian aid, yet vast areas such as the Jebel Marra mountains and virtually the entire northwestern region are almost completely inaccessible to aid agencies due to the violence and insecurity. Recent fighting has forced many agencies operating in and around Kutum in North Darfur to temporarily suspend their programs.
The agencies called on all parties engaged in the conflict—those who have signed the DPA and those who have not—to immediately adhere to the ceasefire and allow humanitarian operations unhindered access to the people in need. They urged the international community to do more to pressure all sides to end the ongoing violence.
]]>More than 10 villages in the southeastern border area next to Sudan's troubled western Darfur region have come under attack in the last several days, forcing the hurried evacuation of men, women and children.
Frightened families told of well-armed men on horseback storming their villages, stealing their possessions and scorching their crops. There were dozens of injuries, and dozens of deaths, most of them from gunshot wounds.
"Things are very, very desperate and are only likely to get worse. People are suffering; they are drinking dirty water and have nothing to eat," said Roland Van Hauwermeiren, the leader of Oxfam's humanitarian operations in eastern Chad, after a visit Thursday to some of the burned villages and conversations with new arrivals to the overflowing convergence sites in the southeast town of Koukou.
"We are mostly seeing women and children, who tell us that there are still people hiding in the bush, waiting until they can come," he said.
>The string of attacks is the latest incident marking the rapid decline of security in eastern Chad, due both to the deteriorating situation in Darfur and homegrown struggles for power.
Clusters of displaced people have converged on the only safe places in the region -- the refugee camps where humanitarian agencies provide food, water and medicine to more than 218,000 Sudanese refugees, as well as water to the surrounding communities. <
p>As their numbers increase so does the pressure on limited supplies of water, food and medicines.
'Where last month Habile was home to 800 newly arrived families, there were nearly 4,000 more on Friday morning,'' said Van Hauwermeiren, who watched a woman give birth, unattended, on a patch of dirt during his visit to Habile on Thursday.
"Families are living without water, without sanitation and in desperate need of health care," said Van Hauwermeiren.
As part of an interagency emergency operation, Oxfam has begun setting up mobile water pumps. Emergency tapstands, pumps and pipes will be erected in coming days and plans are in place for installing an emergency tank that can store 95 cubic meters of water: two days' supply for 5,000 people.
Humanitarian workers travelling on the road from Goz Beida report that hundreds of people are travelling there on foot, carrying only the bare essentials they were able to salvage from their burned and looted villages.
"A lot of people are on the move, and they are not sure where they are going to go," said Van Hauwermeiren. "What they are sure of is that they will not be going home because it is just not safe."
Oxfam is calling on the Chadian authorities to move quickly and stabilise a situation that threatens to veer dangerously out of control and provoke further suffering within the civilian population.
"It is critical that humanitarian workers are able to reach the displaced populations in the areas near Goz Amir refugee camp in eastern Chad," said Van Hauwermeiren.
"Our biggest challenge right now is security, and it's only going to get worse, from what we are hearing from the populations. If we start moving stocks and equipment to the field and we are compromised by insecurity, and stuck in the middle of the road, we won't be able to help anybody."
]]>One of the remarkable things about Darfur is the number of people who are still volunteering with health committees after three years of living in Abu Shouk and Al Salaam camps outside of North Darfur's capital of El Fasher.
About 60 percent of the original committee volunteers at Abu Shouk have continued with their work. At nearby Al Salaam camp, the number is 80 percent. Their help is pivotal to the success of Oxfam's public health work in the camps. Every week they spend several hours visiting households in their allocated blocks and inspecting the surrounding areas.
They go shelter to shelter talking with families and sharing information on good hygiene. They check latrines for cleanliness and wear. And they instruct families on how to keep their water clean by making sure the jerry cans in which they store it are scrubbed with powdered soap and chlorine.
"We wanted to serve our people and to raise the awareness of the population so that everyone's at the same level," says Kaltoum Ali Asad, a volunteer at Abu Shouk.
"If we don't volunteer to do something the people would suffer and there'd be outbreaks of diseases and illnesses," adds Namma Saed Haroun at Al Salaam camp. "If we didn't volunteer it would be us who would eventually suffer, so we will continue to volunteer."
Their efforts win high praise from the agency.
"The volunteers work really hard," says Hussaam Eddin Mirghani, Oxfam's team leader at Abu Shouk. "They volunteer because they're afraid of diseases, especially diarrheal diseases, spreading throughout the camp. The volunteers really feel the necessity to support their communities and their people, who are really suffering in this dreadful situation."
Camp life is bleak. Ahmed Eysa, who has lived at Abu Shouk for three years with is family, makes that clear.
"Life here is horrible," he says. "It's full of difficulties, and we don't have any solutions in our hands. There are no choices for the people living here in the camp."
But Eysa has made one choice—an important one that will make a difference to others in the camp. He chose to volunteer, and he has continued giving his time for three years.
"We have to adapt to our situation and we really need to respond," he says. "There's no way we could give up."
Soon, the rains will come and fall heavily. Living conditions in the camps will deteriorate, and the threat of diseases like cholera, malaria, and diarrhea will rise. Then, the job of the health committee workers will be even more vital.
]]>"Here, in the camp, we are sitting with nothing to do," said a woman named Khadeja, her tedium heightened by memories of what she used to do. "In the village we were very active all the time—working on the farms, trading in the markets, herding animals. Here, there are no job opportunities. No income."
Without money, it's difficult for families to get everything they need.
"Everything here is for sale," said a man. "Back home it cost you nothing. You had it on the farm and if you had a surplus you could take it and exchange it for other things in the market."
At some of the camps, people are able to find jobs, but the pay is poor and the work can be exhausting. Kaltoum Ali Asad , a mother of eight children, occasionaly picks up a bit of work in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur. It's right next to Abu Shouk camp, which has been her home for the past three years.
"Sometimes I'll walk to El Fasher town and find a job cleaning, sweeping, washing clothes," she says. "I'll get 75 cents for washing a dozen pieces of clothing, which takes all afternoon. There isn't much you can buy for 75 cents. Maybe a bundle of firewood."
In the past, gathering firewood was one of the chores that Asad devoted time to. But she has stopped because it is unsafe to leave the safety of the camp to collect it. Now, she buys her wood from the market and a bundle doesn't last very long—perhaps just enough to cook one meal, but no more.
"Food is another challenge," says Asad. "The children might go for a month without the food we think is valuable for them—fruits, vegetables, meat. Meat is very expensive: $5 for a kilo, and I don't have the money to buy it, and there are no adequate vegetables I can get as a substitute."
For children, who rise at dawn, household chores can consume a good part of the day, especially if one of them is wood gathering. They tell of walking for five hours, in groups of boys and girls up to 10 strong. Collecting grass to hawk in the markets is another task children assume, though a sale can take a long time. Preparing meals and washing are chores that fall to the girls, but both boys and girls fetch water. And if school is open, children attend classes between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m.
When darkness comes, everyone retires.
"We're too scared to go out when it's dark," says one girl. "We go to sleep."
Fourteen-year-old Mahmoud sums it up this way. "I've been here three years with my mother and father, six brothers and three sisters," he says. "We're not happy with the life here. I'd like to be living back in my village—like it used to be."
]]>“If we don’t get more fuel for the water pumps and fresh people in to run the aid effort, we will be forced to turn off the taps for 110,000 people within the next three weeks at best. We are calling on the UN and donors to organize an air lift from neighboring Cameroon and a reliable food and fuel supply line in order to keep providing clean water and humanitarian aid to refugees and displaced Chadians,” said Nick Roseveare, Regional Director for West Africa.
The aid effort is running on empty. Oxfam International will face shortages of cash, fuel and food within the next three weeks, if the security situation does not improve.
“We have around three weeks of stock that will allow us to keep our operations going in eastern Chad, but our top priority is to be able to rotate our staff to keep the program going,” said Roseveare.
The fighting has completely cut off the landlocked eastern region from the rest of the country and the outside world for almost a week. International flights have stopped. There have been no flights between Ndjamena and the rest of the country for one week.
Oxfam International's operations are focused on providing water and sanitation, protection and health promotion to more 110,000 people. There are nearly half a million people displaced in Eastern Chad. The majority of them are refugees from the Darfur conflict.
Oxfam International has evacuated international staff from the capital but is keeping staff in the east to continue its operations. They are delivering life-saving water operations and they are stretched to full capacity, working around the clock.
]]>So, three times a week, and sometimes more, women from the Abu Shouk and Al Salaam camps head out on four-hour treks to scavenge for fuel. If they don't come upon any trees, the women resort to clawing through the hard-packed earth to reach bits of root that they can burn instead.
But hard work is only part of their problem. Looming larger for these women is the constant threat to their safety: By venturing even a short distance outside of the camps they could face harassment, sexual assault, or even death. Since early 2003, conflict has wracked this region, forcing more than 2 million people from their homes. Many of them have sought shelter in camps like Abu Shouk and Al Salaam. But the demands of daily living—the need for wood, for jobs, for food—often require them to leave the safety of those camps.
Now, Oxfam America, together with the Sudanese Agency for Environment and Development Service (SAEDS), has launched a $132,000 program that will help thousands of displaced women stay safer in this volatile place. The agency is providing 4, 200 households with fuel-efficient stoves that, in many cases, will completely remove the need for women to hunt for wood. Two thousand of the stoves are kerosene-fueled; another 2,000 are efficient wood-burning stoves; and 200 of them use gas. The project will benefit about 25,200 people.
Women were excited about getting the stoves, said Sahar Ali, an Oxfam America program officer, who paid a monitoring visit to Abu Shouk in late January.
"Traditionally, the provision of firewood and fuel for cooking has been the responsibility of women," said Ali, in a report she filed after the visit. "There are few other sources of cooking fuel available to them."
But with the introduction of kerosene and gas, they now have other options. And the small round stoves that burn wood efficiently—as opposed to open fires—means women will need to make fewer of the dangerous scavenging trips.
Still, convincing women that gas is a smart way to cook has taken some doing, said Ali. They worried about its hazards.
"This is the first time for them using gas, and most of the houses are made from wood," said Ali. "If it burns, it burns all the camp. They said we prefer kerosene—not the gas."
The hesitancy about gas notwithstanding, the new stoves are bringing another important benefit to the region, too: some relief for the environment.
"North Darfur is mostly desert, and the few trees that provided a nearby source of cooking fuel when the camps were first created more than two years ago are all gone," said Ali in her report.
It's a trend that Ibrahim Suliman, a program coordinator for SAEDS, has watched for the past four decades as it's crept across the region.
"When I was a child, most of Darfur was covered in forest—even North Darfur," said Suliman, a native of Dar el Salaam, a small village about 30 miles south of El Fasher. But in the last 30 years, those trees and grasses have given way to desert. Why?
"Because of overgrazing," said Suliman. "Because there is no planning for animal breeding. And the firewood for cooking. And for houses—people build their houses from wood. And charcoal traders."
But with the introduction of the stoves, some of that degradation can be slowed since less wood will be needed for cooking. Suliman has even convinced his mother to switch to kerosene.
"She's very happy. It's clean," he said.
SAEDS is taking its concern for the environment a step further: It has launched a replanting project in Dar es Salaam and plans to begin a similar effort around the camps.
"Our philosophy is to restock the forest and all these things will be improved," said Suliman. "If we try to stop cutting trees and every year we try to plant many new trees, within four to five years we will be able to restock a big amount of trees. And we'll be able to at least make the environment more attractive than before and people can find grasses for their animals and be able to cultivate again. It might take a long time, but we have to start."
In Dar el Salaam, thanks to SAEDS, about 4,500 new saplings are now growing.
"In five to 10 years, I'm sure it will be green," said Suliman.
Near El Fasher, trees might also grow again. Oxfam's project with SAEDS calls for the planting of 10,000 seedlings around the camps. Families who have recently received the fuel-efficient stoves will be mobilized to do the planting.
]]>A crowd has gathered, as it always does, to watch this momentous event: Wayongo and his crew are drilling a well in a place that looks so dry one wonders if water could possibly be percolating down below. But Wayongo, a public health engineer and well driller for Oxfam, is optimistic.
"We have not struck water, but the formation is giving us courage," he shouts over the roar of the hydraulic drill. "The problem is during the dry season, the water table is very far down."
This will be the fourth deep well Wayango and his crew of five men have drilled recently in the rural areas around Kebkabiya in North Darfur. The water improvements are part of an Oxfam program to help the people in 11 small villages in this region manage as the conflict that has consumed Darfur for more than three years rages on. The initiative also includes constructing latrines and distributing farming tools.
While most of Oxfam's work during the conflict has been geared toward preventing the spread of waterborne diseases among hundreds of thousands of people who have fled from their homes, the agency recognizes that the needs in Darfur extend far beyond the temporary camps to which displaced people have flocked.
"Although there are two million internally displaced people in camps, there are many others remaining in villages who need help too," said Alun McDonald, Oxfam's communications officer based in Khartoum.
And some of them are here on this small hill in Igro. Under a scorching sun, Wayongo is making his second attempt of the day to locate a new source of water for the inhabitants of this village. After drilling about 90 feet down on a nearby rise—and coming up empty—Wayongo decided to move a little closer to a dry river bed and try his luck there.
If he hits water, he'll quickly send a sample to El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, to have it analyzed for salt and other contaminants. If it passes the test, the work crew will install a pump and build a platform around the well to keep the water clean when people draw it up.
Wayongo prefers to drill for water during the dry season because he knows that if he does strike it when the water table is at its lowest, then the supply will be a reliable one. Besides, during the rainy season, which typically stretches between June and October, this kind of work is difficult. The rain swamps the dirt tracks that serve as roads, turning them into mud that can swallow heavy trucks loaded with drilling equipment.
But it is not just the rain that makes movement difficult for Wayongo and his team. As with much of Darfur, the area around Kebkabiya is prone to hijackings and militia activity, and is not always safe to travel around, particularly after dark. When things are secure enough for the team to travel to the villages, they work late—and stay where they are.
So, after a hot and dusty day, Wayongo's crew won't be heading to Oxfam's headquarters and their own comfortable beds in Kebkabiya. They'll camp at Igro—and get an early start on the next day's drilling operation.
]]>As violence in this part of the remote region of western Sudan increases again, there is an expectation at Abu Shouk—and across Darfur—that no one will be heading back to their villages any time soon. In the face of that reality, the camp has undergone a slow transformation from a settlement of plastic-covered shelters hastily constructed with branches, to a community that has many of the trappings of permanence—and home.
"The camp now looks like a town," said Hind Adam Ali, an Oxfam public health promoter as she led visitors into the dense by neatly laid out settlement, divided into blocks with broad paths of sand, much like streets, running in between. Oxfam has been providing water, sanitation, and public health outreach to more than 50,000 people in the camp.
Abu Shouk lies close to El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur and the place where the first serious fighting of the on-going conflict erupted more than three years ago. Since the signing of the Darfur Peace Agreement last May, fighting has actually intensified in this area and has again devastated many towns and villages north of El Fasher—the places that many of the people who have sought refuge in Abu Shouk originate from.
Increasingly, the camp has the feel of a sprawling capital neighborhood, within walking distance of El Fasher's main market and linked to the city by periodic family compounds that have recently sprouted on the plain between the camp and the capital.
By one estimate, 80 percent of Abu Shouk's shelters are now made of mud brick, and signs of that industry—the pocked ground from which the dirt is dug and mixed with water—dot the camp.
But the consequence of all that liquid-intensive building was that by the middle of July, the lines at the camp's pumps where people gather to fill their large plastic jerry cans with water to lug home for drinking and washing, were up to three hours long. At midsummer, only 23 of the camp's 33 hand pumps were producing any water. The other 10 had gone dry.
Housing isn't the only thing that is sucking up great volumes of water. Aid workers also say that camp residents, needing to provide for their families beyond the basics offered by aid groups, are collecting water at the camp and hauling it into the capital for sale.
The massive human need for water is simply outstripping the natural resources of the land, which is not meant to house so many thousands of people for such a long time.
"We've been talking to the leaders about it, but it's still going on," said Hind.
On the outskirts of Al Salaam, a newer camp established nearby to relieve some of the over-population at Abu Shouk, a brick works, masterminded by a gang of little boys, was also underway.
Despite the midday heat, one boy hardly noticed the visitors who appeared, so intent was he on shoveling dirt from the pit in which he stood. Jugs of water ringed some of the other pits. Another boy scooped fistfuls of mud into a sloppy heap onto which he stomped to squeeze out the extra water before packing the mud into a metal form, shaped like a rectangular bread pan. Set out in the sun, a row of the soggy bricks slowly dried. It would take two days before they would be done
Abdal Azim Tigani, 9 and caked in mud, announced that he had made 51 bricks which he planned to sell for 10 dinars—or 4 cents—each.
How many had he sold so far?
None, he replied, clearly content to be messing about in the cool mud on a hot day, and undaunted by the sales task ahead. But judging by the widespread use of the bricks throughout Abu Shouk, Abdal would have a ready market for his product.
At Abu Shouk, family plots once ringed with prickly branches now stand protected by thick walls. Many of the plots have morphed into mini-compounds with separate rooms for cooking, shelters for chickens, and stalls for donkeys—all made with mud bricks.
At one compound, the owner proudly showed off his satellite dish, tucked behind a curtain made from cut-up food sacks. The TV, he said, was stashed carefully in the bedroom of one of his wives, and electricity to power the high-tech production came from a neighbor who owned a generator. Every evening the whole neighborhood gathers around his screen to watch the news and keep up with the world outside Darfur. The biggest crowd, he added, was for this year's World Cup final.
Alleyways have formed between the compound walls, connecting to the broader "streets." Hurrying down one of them was Hawa Sulieman Ahmed, a member of one of the health committees Oxfam has organized at Abu Shouk to help promote good hygiene practices throughout the camp.
Coming upon Hind and her visitors, Hawa insisted on inviting the small crowd back to her "home,"—a small complex of tiny structures tucked behind a heavy mud wall with a metal door. When Hawa's family first arrived at the camp, a plastic sheet was their only shelter. Now, a dwelling of straw walls—paid for with the bricks they made and sold—houses a bed along with several mats and a carpet unfurled on the sandy ground. Recycled plastic grain sacks serve as the roof. In the corner of her compound, a stall for sponge-bathing and another housing a latrine, completed the makeshift creature comforts.
But despite appearances, Abu Shouk is no substitute for home. Time passes slowly, said Hawa, and she longs to see her family.
"When we are in our villages, we are so busy farming and doing other things, but here, there are no activities," she said. "And we're not happy because our family is separated. My mother is in one place, my sister is in another, and me here."
Mud bricks make a show of permanence. But what Hawa wants is something more important than that. Bidding farewell to the visitors, she asked them a final question: "Why is there no peace?"
]]>Born and raised in Kutum, one of the last small towns on the edge of the hundreds of miles of vast desert that sweeps north toward Libya and Egypt, Mohammed Ibrahim has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the dozens of different tribes and communities scattered across the region. Today he heads the agency's livelihoods program in northern Darfur, and visitors to Oxfam and the many international staff working on the program regularly turn to him for information on intricate local customs and history. Such local knowledge has helped shape Oxfam's work there over the past 20 years.
Oxfam has traditionally worked in partnership with rural communities throughout Darfur, building local capacity and providing technical know-how to help improve water supplies, sanitation, and agriculture in what has always been one of the poorest and most isolated parts of Sudan. When the current conflict escalated in 2003, up to two million people were uprooted from their villages and crowded into towns or settled into camps for displaced people. The emergency needs of the people of Darfur were clear and Oxfam responded by providing water and sanitation to around 400,000 displaced people.
But many hundreds of thousands more remain in their villages, often in highly volatile rural areas where various groups still vie for control. Many have seen their crops burned, their animals stolen, and their villages looted of assets like irrigation pumps, engines and cooking pots. The violence has prevented villagers from trading in local markets or from going out to harvest their fields. The traditional livelihoods with which they previously sustained themselves have been destroyed.
The local knowledge Oxfam has accumulated over the last two decades is essential in helping such communities. As Mohammed Ibrahim points out: "Oxfam has a long and successful history of working with communities in Darfur. In the current conflict, which continues to devastate the lives and livelihoods of millions of people, these villages have lost everything. Together we can help them along the path to recovery, to strengthen their food security and to rebuild their livelihoods."
Many villagers have had virtually everything they owned taken from them. So the Oxfam livelihoods team is first focusing on helping to replace what has been lost. Working initially in villages to the west of North Darfur in the areas of Kebkabiya, Saraf Omra, and Birka Seira, Oxfam is providing around 30,000 people with a wide range of goods and resources.
Grain and vegetable seeds have been distributed and villages will be carefully restocked with donkeys and other animals. Livestock are an important source of milk and meat and can also be sold to buy grain. Donkeys in particular are integral to the livelihoods of rural Darfur, being used for transport water, firewood, and other essentials.
Before the conflict, many villages had communal mills, which provided an income for the village and also reduced household expenditures, since families did not need to take grain to a private mill. Most such mills have now been destroyed, so Oxfam is working to replace them. Community health committees from each village have planned for the income obtained from these new mills to then be plowed back into rehabilitating schools and health centers that have also been destroyed in the conflict.
Mohammed Ibrahim and the rest of the team consult such community-based committees, women's groups, and other vulnerable sectors of Darfur society at every step to discuss the needs and concerns of each village. "These public forums have enabled Oxfam to tailor our projects to meet villagers' precise needs," he says. Such needs include not only food and farming but also protection and security. With the security situation in Darfur showing no sign of improving, it remains an extremely dangerous place, and communities expressed concern that being re-equipped with relatively valuable tools would only increase their vulnerability to looting and attack. So the livelihoods project is working in tandem with Oxfam's protection team to ensure that communities are not exposed to additional risk. The agency is providing only what is most urgently needed, including blankets, cooking utensils and tools such as donkey plows—relatively low-cost items that should not attract the attention of bandits.
Even the animals' gender can affect a village's security. Only female donkeys are distributed: They can haul firewood, food, and water every bit as well as males, but have significantly less market value and so are less likely to be stolen.
After restocking it is essential to ensure that the animals are kept healthy. Selected local villagers are to be trained as "paravets," assistant veterinarians who will be equipped with toolkits and drugs to ensure that animals are vaccinated against disease.
Mohammed Ibrahim and the team are also spearheading a new initiative to conduct research at key regional markets in North Darfur, mapping out the different production and food security patterns in different areas. Prices of animals, cash crops, and sorghum and millet (the staple grains of the region) are being compared, as well as prices of non-food items such as charcoal and firewood, which, in addition to their practical uses, provide a vital source of income for rural communities. The information gathered will be passed on to other NGOs working in the area to help shape other livelihood and food security programs.
]]>But, he adds proudly, he does know how to wash his hands properly after going to the latrine—something he rarely did just a few weeks ago. And he proceeds to demonstrate to the group of children, who—like Osman—have started attending Oxfam's child-to-child educational programs that aim to equip the children of Kalma camp with knowledge that could save their lives.
Football matches, songs, volleyball tournaments, and playground games are just some of the innovative ways in which the Oxfam Public Health Promotion (PHP) team here is teaching children how to stay healthy.
Kalma is one of the largest camps in Darfur—mile after mile of tightly packed shelters and rapidly constructed sanitation systems currently home to around 89,000 displaced people. As in most camps, the vast majority of residents are women and children. Two years ago there were just 19,000 people here, but rapid growth since then has created an abundance of health risks, to which children are the most vulnerable.
"Children everywhere need to be taught to wash their hands and keep clean," says Khaled Suleiman, one of Oxfam's PHP officers in the camp. "But here especially so, as the consequences can easily be fatal."
To make sure the messages sink in, Khaled and the team try to make them as fun as possible. Oxfam has built a series of community shelters where child-to-child interactive classes and activities are held.
Songs are enthusiastically sung about how to prevent malaria and diarrhea ("Our food should be washed, our water should be covered," the children sing, accompanied by stomping of feet and clapping of hands).
Other songs encourage children to participate in community clean-up campaigns, and explain how to set up mosquito nets and use the latrines properly. Oxfam has installed around 9,000 family latrines and 1,500 communal latrines in Kalma.
The children in Kalma love to make noise. The merest glimpse of a new Oxfam worker elicits a chorus of hundreds of voices shouting in unison, "OK, OK"—the nickname the children of Kalma have given to foreign visitors and the first English word every child in the camp learns. The welcome is followed by mischievous smiles and laughter all round, and the children's enthusiasm for loud, energetic fun extends into the classroom.
"My favorite is the singing and dancing," says Osman of the child-to-child activities, his arms waving frantically about his head as he mimes the actions to a song about swatting away flies. "And I like to learn new things." He has spent most of his short life in the camp after arriving here with just his mother. Nobody is sure what happened to his father and brothers.
Nine-year-old Hawa also likes to sing. "I enjoy the classes as I can make friends with lots of other children and learn at the same time. We sing the songs when we go home as well. I would like to go to school but so far I have not been able to," said Hawa, who has been in the camp for two-and-a-half years since her family fled their village of Shataya, nearly 100 miles to the west.
The PHP team works with community volunteers to come up with new songs that they think the children will find both educational and entertaining. "Kalma is as big as a city, so it is divided into eight 'sectors,'" says Khaled. "Recently we heard children from sectors 7 and 8—the only parts of the camp where Oxfam does not work—singing our songs! The children at our classes had been singing at home and gradually the songs spread around the entire camp."
The programs have proved extremely popular—almost too popular. The teachers—themselves displaced people living in the camp—say they often have 400 children trying to cram into a single room at the community shelter. "Every time we open the door, another dozen or so burst in," says Khadija, who teaches children in Sector 3 of the camp.
"Having such large classes can make it very hard for us to get the message across successfully," she says. "So we have split them into groups. Group 1 comes between 8:30 and 10:30 and Group 2 between 11 and 1 pm. Of course, some children try and come to both!"
"We are trying to ensure that the children are exposed to our messages at every possible opportunity," says Khaled. "The songs are just a part of our activities and it is clear that children's health has improved since the programs began."
Cartoon drawings explaining how food can breed germs, and how failing to clean latrines will spread disease and attract rodents, are pinned to the walls of the community shelters. Football matches and other events are organized for children to attend, where health-related information is disseminated.
The PHP team is also coordinating its efforts with the four primary schools in Kalma camp. A number of children from each class are chosen as supervisors and join teachers for training in hygiene promotion. The skills and facts they learn are then passed on to their classmates and pupils.
]]>The camp is only about nine miles from their village of Abu Hamra, which once was home to about 500 families. But after Janjaweed militia tore through the community burning dwellings and looting, Omar's family fled, as nearly two million other Darfur residents have done since conflict erupted in the region in 2003.
Omar's family was among the lucky ones. They survived the attack, but lost many of their belongings, including about 110 sheep. They arrived at Shangil Tobai with just a donkey, a bed, and a few clothes. There, they have joined nearly 20,000 other people, many of them from surrounding villages, who have squeezed into Shangil Tobai and a neighboring camp, Shadad, seeking safety from the violence that has shattered their communities.
Oxfam is helping about 400,000 displaced people scattered in camps like Shangil Tobai. The agency is supplying them with clean water and sanitation facilities as well as with essential household goods like soap and water containers. At Shangil Tobai, families have received two cooking pots, a cup, a bowl, a bucket, two jerry cans, a sleeping mat, and blankets.
But while people's basic needs are being met and Omar's youngest children are in school, there is little to fill the lives of camp residents at Shangil Tobai. In their two years at the camp, Omar's family has had no opportunity to earn an income, nor have they been able to plant their fields or harvest a crop. At the end of each month, there is rarely enough food left from the rations provided by international aid groups to feed everyone in the family sufficiently. And it has been nearly two years since any of them have eaten meat—a regular part of their diet back at Abu Hamra.
Danger circles the camp. Leaving its security to collect firewood for cooking is necessary—but risky. In recent weeks, raiders on camels attacked a small group on the edge of the camp, killing three people and stealing their animals. People are increasingly worried that such attacks will take place within the camps themselves.
Omar and his family long to go home, but they find it hard to envision any improvement in their situation in the near future. Talks aimed at a political solution that would bring long-term security to the region have progressed only haltingly.
"We miss our homes. We miss our village, our furniture, our animals, and also our privacy," said Omar. But until a political settlement is reached—and safety for civilians is guaranteed—it is simply too dangerous for Omar and his family to leave Shangil Tobai.
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