Rainy season signals tough time for Darfur

Social justice news
August 2005

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Rainy season signals tough time for Darfur
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Vatican adds support to small arms trade treaty

Rainy season signals tough time for Darfur
Nyala, Darfur, July 18, 2005--Almost 2 million people in camps around Darfur are facing yet another rainy season. According to relief workers, temporary shelters give limited protection and often collapse when the sky opens and heavy rains pour from the sky.

Increase in malnutrition, scarce food resources, and logistical problems in getting aid delivered to beneficiaries are some of the challenges facing the multi-national ACT/Caritas team working in Darfur. Everyone dreads the next few months as the rainy season sets in.

The Darfur Emergency

Conflict-affected persons in Darfur and Eastern Chad: 2.73 million people (Source: UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs--OCHA)

Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Darfur: 1.88 million people
(Source: OCHA)

Sudanese Refugees in Eastern Chad: 200,000 people in camps
(Source: UN High Commissioner for Refugees—UNHCR)

Conflict-Affected Persons in Darfur receiving food assistance: In June, 2.0 million people and in May, 1.8 million people
(Source: UN World Food Program-WFP)

"We fear for what is ahead," says Bjørg Mide, the director of the joint response by the two faith-based networks, Action by Churches Together (ACT) International and Caritas Internationalis. "The IDPs [internally displaced persons] have been living in camps for a long time. Their resilience has already weakened due to the harsh living conditions," she explains, adding that "due to logistical constraints, we have to limit our activities in the outreach programmes."

"I have great concerns for what will happen to those who will not be able to access our services," says Mide.

Local representatives of the ACT/Caritas Darfur Emergency Operation (DERO), Sudan Council of Churches (SCC), Sudan Development Organisation (SUDO), and Sudan Aid have been pre-positioning food and non-food items in the areas most likely to be cut off from the outside world by the heavy rains. However, it is barely enough to last through the three-month long season and concerns have been expressed that there may be outbreaks of epidemics caused by water-borne diseases.

For the tens of thousands of people who have been displaced and are still waiting to go home, the toughest time of the year has just arrived. Rain pours mercilessly from the sky at night. During the day, those who have received some seeds and tools, are busy cultivating plots of land, hoping to give their families some food security for the next year. But most IDPs do not have the option of cultivating land. They fear going home due to a general lack of security, so they remain in the camps all the while knowing that another chance at a harvest has been lost.

"Most of the IDPs will be dependent on getting food aid for at least another year," says Mide. "This puts great pressure on the international community to make funds available. The IDPs have a right to get their basic needs covered and we need the international community to honour their obligations. If not, we may face a very serious situation. The tragedy of Darfur is far from over," she warned.

Nearly 25,000 children under the age of five and pregnant and lactating women have been admitted to the ACT/Caritas clinics over the past year. Nutritionist Sylvie Kokere expects the level of malnutrition to rise in the coming months.

"We have seen a lot of new admissions in our clinics the last couple of weeks and the rainy season has only just begun. The last few months we managed to stabilise the situation and the mortality rate went down, but this might be about to change," she says.

The Kubum Corridor, which includes the field stations at Um Labassa, Dagadoussa and Garsilla, will be more or less impossible to reach by road. Usually, the journey to Kubum takes about four hours. Now it takes a day or sometimes even longer. Field staff are forced to stay overnight, waiting for the water in the wadis, gully or streambeds that remain dry except during rainy season, to go down.

"Wadis are dangerous at this time of the year," says the ACT/Caritas logistics manager Phillip Okanya Aurugai. "Sudden flooding and heavy rainfall can cause cars, and in worst-case scenarios, people to be taken by the floods. We will have to depend on helicopters to get our staff out to some of our field stations. In some areas we will not be able to get more aid in until it dries up," he says.—Hege Opseth, ACT/Caritas information officer

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