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Sudan Tribune

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Sudan’s Darfur camps attract new economic migrants

March 19, 2007 (EL-GENEINA) — Ibrahim Shousha is unlike many who fled their Darfur homes in fear to squat in one of miserable camps in Sudan’s troubled western region.

Women_trasport.jpgHis large fenced compound in Dorti camp outside West Darfur’s main town is made from new mats of straw laced together, he has two metal beds and clothes and parcels of food and goods litter the sandy floor of his hut.

Nearby, Darfuris who arrived at the same time two months ago were living in flimsy plastic sheets held up by sticks which feebly tried to keep out the red dust blowing in the wind.

They fled attacks on their homes with no more than the clothes on their backs whereas Shousha is part of a new type of refugee in Darfur.

“I came with donkeys which carried my things,” said Shousha whose nephew was already studying at el-Geneina University.

“We had no harvest so we came here.”

Experts estimate 200,000 have been killed and 2.5 million driven from their homes by the rape, killing and pillage in Darfur which violence Washington calls genocide. Khartoum denies genocide and European governments are reluctant to use the term.

The four-year-old conflict has also disrupted the lives of many of the farming communities whose harvests have either failed or been eaten by cattle farming nomads.

Many new arrivals in Darfur’s camps are economic migrants, not driven by fear for their lives, but by the hardship the conflict has caused.

“We heard there were aid agencies working here so we came here to get food aid,” said Shousha when asked why he came to the camp from his home in the village of Dagok a dozen kilometres (7 miles) away.

Abdallah Mohamed Suleiman, also from Dagok, said he came because “The conditions here are better than in our villages. Here internationals will give us food.”

His crops failed and he heard the world’s largest aid operation was providing food and shelter. Almost 2.5 million now live in the camps.

ECONOMIC MIGRANTS

While almost 14,000 aid workers try to also give food and blankets and other aid to those in the remote villages cut off from the fighting, limited funds and insecurity means those outside the camps often get less aid than those inside.

Some aid workers expressed concerns that this was attracting people who were more economic migrant than refugee.

The World Food Programme adjusted its feeding programme based on surveys last year. Those in the camps get 100 percent rations. Many of those in remoter villages get 50 percent and some whose harvests have not been so affected receive none.

“The limited available resources will be targeted to ensure that the needs of the population are best met,” WFP said in its food targeting policy document.

It is also trying to prevent reliance on aid at the expense of local production and not to affect local market economies.

Suleiman said he had never received food aid in his village so the rationing did not affect him. But the pull of help and the relative safety due to the presence of international aid agencies was a factor in his moving.

CORRUPT SHEIKHS

WFP are trying to give food aid in more productive ways. Their Food for Recovery programme means those who may be affected by the reduced rations build things needed in the community like water reservoirs or roads and receive WFP food in return for their labour.

Food for Education means those who send their children to school get full rations or their children are fed at school.

“We are working … to provide them with alternative assistance to general food distribution such as Food for Recovery, Food for Education,” said the head of WFP in West Darfur, Pablo Recalde.

While efforts are made not to produce a generation dependent on handouts for a living, aid in conflict areas like Darfur is often misused.

Shousha said the local sheikh came and recorded their names to get a food ration card, but they had seen none in months. He said he suspected the sheikh was hoarding the cards to collect their food and sell it on.

This has happened in many of Darfur’s camps with corrupt camp leaders who call themselves sheikhs at times being found to have up to 70 ration cards instead of just one.

(Reuters)

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