UNAMID official visits West Darfur in focus on refugee return
June 16, 2009 (ALFASHER) – The deputy chief of the joint African Union-United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) today visited the West Darfur village of Seraf Jidad, where more than 2,000 families have returned home in the past two months.
Seraf Jidad and the area immediately surrounding it was home to as many as 8,000 families until January last year, when the Sudan Armed Forces and allied militias attacked and burned the village and the towns of Abu Suruj, Silea, and Sirba.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon stated in April after the attacks, “The military operations by the Sudanese Armed Forces and militias in the northern corridor of Western Darfur during the first three months of 2008 caused dozens of civilian fatalities and the displacement of an estimated 60,000 individuals… Humanitarian compounds and centres were also systematically looted and/or destroyed during the Sudanese Armed Forces and militia attacks.”
The Government of Sudan and rebel Justice and Equality Movement were in a struggle for control of the area.
Many residents of Seraf Jidad started returning two months ago after local humanitarian officials promised better security and offered plastic sheeting and other materials for the rebuilding of homes.
Today the peacekeeping mission reported the visit in a statement similar to one released a week ago when the same official, Henry Anyidoho, visited roughly 1,500 returnees in South Darfur.
With such visits UNAMID is attempting to highlight positive developments and improving security in some areas even as the gross number of displaced people in greater Darfur increased throughout 2008 and 2009.
“We will take up the challenge – UNAMID, together with UN agencies and NGOs [non-governmental agencies], as well as the Government – to see how quickly we can come to your aid,” said Anyidoho.
Speaking to community elders and youth and women’s group leaders, Deputy Joint Special Representative Anyidoho said it was critical to provide returnees with the necessary support so that their returns are not temporary.
He stated today that the Mission would do all it could to help civilians who have started returning voluntarily to their villages to rebuild their livelihoods and ensure that they can stay in their communities.
Anyidoho said improving security, providing water and rehabilitating infrastructure would be priority tasks for UNAMID, UN agencies and NGOs in villages such as Seraf Jidad, which lies in a relatively fertile area about 45 kilometres southwest of El Geneina, the state capital.
The UNAMID delegation to Seraf Jidad also included military and police sector commander, as well as UNAMID civil affairs, human rights, political affairs, humanitarian and gender officials, and representatives of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Of all countries in the world, Sudan has the largest total population of displaced people.
(ST)