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CHAD-CAMPS Sep-2-2004 (900 words) With photos. xxxi
In northeastern Chad's heat and rain, refugee graves are added daily
By Stephen Steele
Catholic News Service
FARCHANA REFUGEE CAMP, Chad (CNS) -- About 100 graves of Sudanese refugees line the cemetery of the Farchana refugee camp in northeastern Chad.
New bodies are added every day, with most of the deceased being young children or the elderly who have succumbed to the harsh conditions of the African desert. The young adults buried there are women.
Missing are the young men: The bodies of those who were killed are buried or rotting throughout the Darfur region of neighboring Sudan, where government-backed Arab militias have waged a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the black Africans who inhabit the region.
"This cemetery is the symbol of our suffering," said Abdullah Abdulaye.
In northeastern Chad, temperatures reach 130 degrees. Dirt roads washed away by unrelenting rains prevent food and other supplies from reaching the refugees.
In the Bredjing refugee camp near Farchana, a team of about a dozen men worked to dig out a truck stuck in sand Aug. 29. The truck was delivering several tons of sorghum to the camp when its wheels sank into the sand, dampened by days of heavy rains.
In Farchana and Bredjing, the refugees say they do not receive enough food and that their children suffer from chronic diarrhea and other maladies. Their tents are no more than 8-feet-by-10-feet, with new arrivals -- families as large as 11 -- placed in 4-foot-by-6-foot tents.
U.N. officials describe conditions in Farchana as "good."
One Doctors Without Borders official said 30 percent of the 1,200 patients the agency sees each week in Bredjing suffer from chronic diarrhea. The official said those numbers were "alarming" and could indicate a potential for more serious maladies, such as dysentery or cholera.
"In my opinion, I don't believe we give them enough food," said Couldjim Madibe, camp director of Farchana and an employee of the local Caritas office, known by its French acronym, Secadev.
"We want to give them more food, but we can't. We have to work within the (U.N.) guidelines," he said.
Those guidelines include per-person-per-day servings of 425 grams of cereal, usually sorghum; 50 grams of beans; 25 grams of a corn-soy mix; 25 grams of oil; 15 grams of sugar; and 5 grams of salt.
More than 12,000 refugees are in Farchana. In Bredjing, the numbers have swelled to more than 40,000, with new refugees arriving every day.
About 200,000 Sudanese refugees are in Chad, with a million more displaced within Sudan. The United Nations estimates that about 30,000-50,000 people have been killed since early 2003.
The World Health Organization said Aug. 31 that in Darfur hepatitis cases have increased due to insufficient clean water and poor sanitary conditions, with more than 2,400 cases and more than 40 deaths reported since late May. In Chad, about 30 deaths have been linked to hepatitis, the U.N. agency reported.
Sudan is under intense international pressure to control the Arab militias, known as the Janjaweed. A U.N. deadline to improve the situation in Darfur expired Aug. 30, leaving Sudan facing international sanctions.
The United Nations says Darfur is the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
Farchana was the first refugee camp for Sudanese in Chad. Now 11 camps are under the direction of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, and other unofficial camps have been established along the Chad-Sudan border.
Abdulaye said he arrived at Farchana in late May. He fled his village of Guerendi in February during a late-night ambush by the Janjaweed and government forces.
He drew lines in the sand to describe how Sudanese soldiers in vehicles surrounded his village while the Janjaweed on camels attacked. Government aircraft shot at fleeing villagers.
"If you succeed in escaping, the planes follow and shoot at you," he said.
His story is similar to the stories other refugees and the displaced have told humanitarian aid workers for months. Sometimes the government aircraft dropped bombs on villages, followed by a militia raid. Others say the Janjaweed arrived first, with government aircraft finishing the job.
Haoua Ahmat was sleeping when the Janjaweed attacked her village in December. She awakened to a bullet ripping through her right leg. She said a militia member began firing indiscriminately through a window of her home.
"It was dark; he didn't know what he was shooting at. When the Janjaweed arrive, they shoot at all that is moving," she said.
Eventually she crawled out of the house, and her elderly father dragged her to safety. The two wandered across the desert for 20 days before reaching the Chad border. Ahmat was taken to a U.N. clinic in Adre, Chad; her right leg was amputated below the knee.
Many of the refugees interviewed at Farchana said they wanted to return home, but they realized it might be a long time before peace is restored to Darfur. Reining in the Janjaweed is not enough, they said: Those who committed crimes against them must be punished, and displaced Sudanese should be repaid for possessions lost.
"Where are our animals? Where are our possessions?" Abdulaye asked.
"How do we forget what we witnessed? People killed by planes, women and children shot. How do we forgive such a thing? It is clear in my mind, I want revenge," he said.
"Every day we are dying as a people," Abdu Gammar said Aug. 28 as he pointed to the grave of a young mother buried earlier that morning in Farchana.
END
Copyright (c) 2004 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service.
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