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Today In History |
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On September 9, 1903
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6 km long Engadin-railroad tunnel of Switzerland inaugurated
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IDPs not safe from violence, aid workers say |
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 NAIROBI, 12 Dec 2005 (IRIN) - Displaced people in the strife-torn
western region of Darfur continue to be threatened and harassed even
after their arrival in camps, aid workers say.
"The security situation in Abu Shouk [the second largest camp in Darfur] is deteriorating each day," says a local aid worker.
"IDPs
[internally displaced persons] were reporting continuous military
presence inside the camps during the nights with threats, detentions,
harassment to the civil population and shootings."
Attacks in all three areas of Darfur have been recently reported - in
West Darfur on Wednesday, an unknown number of gunmen opened fire on an
IDP shelter, killing one man and seriously wounding his wife.
Last
month, 13 militiamen entered a camp in North Darfur and fired on
civilians, killing two children, aged six and nine, and injuring a
teenager and an adult male.
In South Darfur state, humanitarian workers say that armed men attack IDP camps. IDPs say women are raped and belongings looted.
Violence,
however, is just one side of the coin. Many IDPs suffer more subtle
forms of harassment and abuse that make daily life in the camps a
constant misery.
During the Eid holiday at the end of Ramadan
in November, for example, trucks delivering food to ZamZam camp outside
El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, were denied access by a
military checkpoint. Although food deliveries resumed later on,
deliveries of sugar were not allowed.
As a result, sugar prices
in the ZamZam market - where IDPs can buy or exchange products to
complement their food rations - skyrocketed during Eid, when people
traditionally prepare a lot of sweets.
"It may sound a bit
silly, but it is not when you realise the meaning that this has for the
IDPs," the aid worker says. "They are very aware of the intentions
behind it."
Other measures include restricting access to health
facilities and latrines, and the recent establishment of a new military
post at Al-Salaam camp near El Fasher, where IDP women are charged
money for collecting firewood.
Another aid worker says that in
November, some IDPs from Abu Shouk were forced by the Sudanese army to
urinate in their shoes. They kept their urine-filled shoes in a plastic
bag as evidence for aid workers the following day.
"At the end
of the day I do not have the time or the capacity or the energy to
write about what I see each day. I am afraid that all those stories
will just evaporate," the aid worker said.
After efforts by
humanitarian agencies, the African Union and Sudanese authorities, the
governor of South Darfur recently agreed to reopen the road to Kalma
camp on 15 December, lifting a six month-long blockade that had stopped
the flow of commercial goods into the camp.
The United Nations'
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has asked
the African Union, which has 6,000-strong peacekeeping force in Darfur,
to conduct 24-hour patrols in IDP areas.
"The humanitarian
community is assisting the IDP and resident populations, and this has
had a positive effect on the health and nutritional situation - but it
is not a sustainable solution," says Dawn Elizabeth Blalock, advocacy
and public information officer for OCHA in Khartoum.
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