Jane Beesley's Darfur Diary
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DAY 3: SHANGIL TOBAI AND SHADDAT
Jane Beesley, a communications officer for Oxfam Great Britain, took a reporting trip to Darfur, Sudan, in the end of April and the early part of May. She visited camps and towns where tens of thousands of displaced people are now living. Here is her diary of that expedition.
The first thing I see when I wake up this morning is an Oxfam vehicle. It was too hot and stuffy in our rooms, so we moved our beds outside. But by early morning it gets quite cold and a warm blanket is needed. People are telling me that one of the differences between living in the camps and their homes is the heat—along with the congestion, the water, the food and firewood situation, few opportunities for work, and security.
Yesterday we flew down to Shangil Tobai, around 40 miles from El Fasher. We went there and back in a day on the once-a-week helicopter, together with teams from other agencies. A year ago it was a fairly safe drive, but now the road is too dangerous. In Shangil Tobai there are two: Shangil Tobai and Shaddat.
I spent most of the time talking with children. I ask one boy what message he would like to send back to boys his age in the United kingdom: “To be good children, to help keep things clean, to concentrate on your education and to work at sport, especially football,” says Mahmoud. I’m struck by the fact that at 14 he still sees himself as a child, despite all the traumatic things he’s probably seen in his short life.
In Shaddat I meet a group of boys and girls from Oxfam’s children’s group. We spend a lot of time talking about their lives. When I ask them what they think life is like in the UK the first thing they sum it up this way: “Life there is very different because there is peace. Not like here, where there is a lot of conflict and fighting, and we are very scared.”
Arriving back in El Fasher we hear the news that another aid agency vehicle has just been hijacked and taken in the town center. In the evening someone from one of the United Nations agencies talks about the number of new people still arriving at the already overcrowded and “closed” camps on the edge of town. The need for another camp is becoming very clear.
