Darfur crisis threatening to destabilise entire region

Week by week, the threat of the Darfur crisis to spill over, not only into other parts of Sudan, but also into other, neighbouring countries, is growing. The UN has long since left any doubt behind regarding Khartoum?s backing of the Janjaweed militia. This week, undeniable photo evidence to that effect was released. Below, read the story of one of more than two million victims of this conflict. (31-MAY-05)

Magboula?s story, below, was recorded and written by Nicholas Kristof for today?s edition of New York Times. It has been contextualised and edited for republication here. All pictures by HRH / Niels Jacob Harbitz.

-The story below is typical, says Niels Jacob Harbitz, HRH?ss Project Manager for East Africa. -During HRH?s visit to Sudan in March, I saw numerous similar destinies. Of the 2,2 million internally displaced, the majority have ended up in different kinds of camps, some, by now, fairly well organised, other unattended to, unsupported and, worst of all, totally unprotected. The number of internally displaced is growing and so does the number of places they are gathering. Despite the fact that the peace agreement was signed now almost five months ago, very few have dared to return home. Sudan, well beyond Darfur, is still unsafe for the unprotected, and the government does next to nothing to improve on this situation.

-Money for nothing
-It is worrying, not only for Sudan, but for the entire region, that the government does so little to honour an agreement signed only a few months ago. Time is running out, UN experts say, for this golden opportunity to stabilize the biggest country in Africa, and with it the whole of the North East of Africa. The stakes are incredibly high, and even if the recent donor conference in Oslo brought in far more money than anticipated, they will count for nothing unless Sudan itself, lead by its own government takes charge and makes a genuine push for peace, adds Harbitz.

Jan Pronk, leading the UN mission to Sudan.

-The truth about Sudan is in the camps, not in a signature
-Outside Khartoum, I saw whole suburbs levelled by bulldozers. 40 kilometers further out into the desert, we found the same people, 
brought there on lorries, living well below existence minimum, dehydrating and starving to death. This is the true voice of the government of Sudan, a truth that was acted out less than two weeks before signing the peace agreement.  






Levelled IDP suburb in the outskirts of Khartoum

Man in new IDP settlement, further outside Khartoum

 

Elders in Sim Sim IDP camp, North Darfur

Slaughtering the sheep, SimSim IDP camp, outside Al-Fasher, the capital city of North Darfur

In Darfur, a group of elders in one of the less secure camps told us that Janjaweed was lurking right outside the camp all during the day, ceasing any animal, sometimes the herdsman or child, too, that would venture just out of sights of the strawhuts and tents. At night, the Janjaweed even raided inside the camps, shooting to kill anyone daring to move outside of their own shelter. The terror imposed has already brought about malnutrition, especially among babies and small children. Widespread hunger, diseases and epidemics and much larger numbers of casualties are all ever more likely next steps, especially since whatever is  left of the herds people brought with them is now being slaughtered for lack of grazing lands, continues Harbitz.

Old wounds may well be torn open again
-And these are only the short-term scenarios. In the longer term, the shortcomings of the peace treaty, aggravated by the disrespect already shown by the Sudanese government, may well brush everything else about the treaty aside. For instance, I can very well see the unanswered questions regarding the Nuba region and the entire South, in other words the areas formerly under military control and command by the Sudan People?s Liberation Army, drift into further unrest, possibly open conflict and war, especially if the widely anticipated self-determination is not met by Khartoum. The peace treaty also includes a general referendum about independence for the South, scheduled for 2011. If not before, that might well be the moment of total collapse and a reopening of the old wounds from what has been an almost non-stop war since the 1956 independence. If so, given the ethnic unity of this region with the north of Uganda, it is bound to draw Uganda as well into the conflict.

To exemplify how this is all felt on the ground, what follows is Magboula?s story. Her?s is typical, and only one among millions in today?s Sudan:        

Magboula lived with her husband and five children in the countryside, but then as the Arab Janjaweed began to slaughter black African tribes like her own, she and her family fled to the safety of a larger town. In December, the Sudanese Army attacked that town, and they ran off to the bush. Two months ago, the Janjaweed militia caught up with them. First the raiders shot her husband dead, she said, her voice choking, and then they whipped her, taunted her with racial insults against black people and mocked her by asking why her husband was not there to help her. Then eight of them gang-raped her.

The Janjaweed men may also have mutilated Magboula. At one point she spoke of being slashed with a knife in the shoulder and chest, but when I asked her about it, she kept changing the subject. “I was very, very ashamed, and very frightened,” she said, leaving it at that. After the attack, Magboula was determined to save her children. So they traipsed together on a journey across the desert to the Kalma Camp, where a small number of foreign aid workers are struggling heroically to assist 110,000 victims of the upheaval. Magboula carried her 6-month-old baby, Abdul Hani, in her arms, and the others, ranging from 2 to 9, stumbled beside her.
Magboula finally arrived at Kalma a few weeks ago. But the Sudanese government is blocking new arrivals like her from getting registered, which means they can?t get food and tents. So Magboula is getting no rations and is living with her children under a straw mat on a few sticks.

Then a few days ago, Abdul Hani, Magboula?s baby, died. She and her children are surviving on handouts from other homeless people who arrived earlier and are getting U.N. food. They have almost nothing themselves, but they at least have the compassion to help those who are even needier.