CNS STORY: Violence continues to drive Darfur farmers into crowded camps

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CNS Story:

DARFUR-CAMPS Aug-8-2007 (850 words) With photos posted July 31 and Aug. 8. xxxi

Violence continues to drive Darfur farmers into crowded camps

By Paul Jeffrey
Catholic News Service

ZALINGEI, Sudan (CNS) -- For years, Fatma Omar resisted leaving her farm near the village of Omra, despite repeated raids by Arab militias. At times she and her family would flee to hide in the desert for several days until it was safe to return home.

Then in mid-July the attackers came again, this time, she said, killing her husband, raping her and burning their thatched home.

With her four children, the eldest 13 years old, she walked for 15 days through the countryside of Darfur, Sudan's westernmost province, reaching the Hassa Hissa camp in Zalingei July 27. As she waited for U.N. camp managers to provide her a card for food rations, she borrowed a tarp and stretched it across the weathered walls of an abandoned hut. Then she sat down in the dust in front of her new home and stared across the landscape in the direction of her old life.

"Now I've got nothing," she said, her hand aimlessly drawing circles in the sand.

In Darfur, more than 2.2 million people have been displaced by government-backed Arab militias. Most of the displaced are African farmers who share the same dark skin, Muslim faith and Arabic language with their attackers.

Tension always has existed between Arab herders and African farmers, but the simmering conflict took a tragic turn in 2003 when the government in Khartoum responded to an incipient rebel struggle by arming Arab militias and unleashing them on the African villages, where they raped and killed with abandon. Many, including the U.S. Congress, labeled the violence genocide.

"They want to clean us off the land so that they can occupy it," said Aisha Abdul, a displaced woman who arrived at the Hassa Hissa camp just a week before Omar. Abdul fled her village earlier in the month, remembering only that it was a Thursday.

"The Arabs came shooting and raping and beating and whipping people," she said. She watched as her neighbor was hacked to death. She said she was raped by the attackers.

The displacement of farmers in Darfur shows no sign of abating, with militia attacks and government bombing of villages driving 160,000 more people from their homes in the first six months of this year, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Camps such as Hassa Hissa have reached such size that relief officials are researching sites for new camps.

Some 4.2 million people have been directly affected by the conflict, according to the United Nations, but continuing violence prevented aid workers from reaching 566,000 of them as of early July.

While a small number of the displaced are able to cultivate crops on land near the camps, most are afraid to venture far from the relative protection of the camps. They were unable to plant crops when the yearly rains began in June and were thus consigned to yet another year of dependence on outside help for their survival.

According to an official with an ecumenical relief operation in Zalingei, the longer the displaced spend in the camps, the more difficult will be any eventual revitalization of the region's economy.

"The economy of this region depends on agriculture, but the agricultural base has been destroyed. And the environmental impact has been horrendous. Look around the bigger camps and you'll see that the forest has been destroyed. When peace comes, the resources to restart normal life in the villages are going to be in short supply," said Adam Ateem, director of peace-building and protection activities for the Darfur Emergency Response Operation, a joint effort of Caritas Internationalis, the Rome-based network of Catholic aid agencies, and Action by Churches Together, the Geneva-based coalition of Protestant relief groups.

In addition to providing a variety of humanitarian services -- such as wells, latrines, housing materials and health care -- to displaced families, the Darfur Emergency Response Operation also supports schools in the camps, trains community leaders in human rights and provides income-generating opportunities.

Ateem said the camps are breeding grounds for discontent.

"Most of the displaced have no way of generating income, so they are dependent on aid from the international community and nongovernmental organizations. They are just sitting there in the camps. There is no work for the youth, so they sit there thinking about their farm lands, thinking about the other people who have driven them out and are enjoying their land. They are thinking, even the small children, that one day they'll have to go and fight those people to get their land back. The longer they're in the camps, the more they begin to think in very negative ways. This is a source of support for the rebel groups and, if they don't have work, many will join the rebels if given an opportunity," Ateem said.

"The situation in the camps is a foundation for future conflicts. We have to find a solution for people in the camps. They're just learning to hate Arab people even more, and that's dangerous for society," he said.

END

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