Sudanese displaced from Darfur not ready to return home

By Simon Apiku

GENEINA, western Sudan, June 25 (AFP) — The woman sobbed as she held up an X-ray of her leg showing a bullet still embedded in her flesh.

Shifting her baby from her left arm to her right, Medina Yacoub recounted her ordeal at the hands of Janjaweed militiamen.

“It was the Janjaweed,” said the resident of the Riyadh camp for displaced persons located on the edge of Geneina, the capital of war-torn West Darfur State in western Sudan, a semi-desert region.

Locals and international aid agencies accuse the pro-government Arab militias of unleashing a wave of terror against Darfuris of Negroid origin.

The governor of Geneina, Soliman Abdallah Adam, recently told visiting French Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Renaud Muselier that some 100,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) are sheltering in 17 camps in his area — evicted from more than 100 villages.

Thousands of people allegedly displaced by the Janjaweed have taken refugee in the Riyadh camp, a collection of box-like structures made of wood and dried grain stalk, measuring three by three meters (about 100 square feet).

“We did not come here because we had nothing to eat in our villages,” one woman said.

Abu Baker Adam, one of the few men in the camp, added: “The Peshmergas attacked our villages, looted our property, raped our women and burned the villages.”

People here also call the Janjaweed “Peshmergas” after the Kurdish militia allies of the US-led coalition in Iraq.

The women around Yacoub jostle to be heard.

Nafisa Daoud, 15, claims that her parents, brothers and sisters were all murdered by the Janjaweed during a visit to their village a few months ago. “I lost everything,” she says.

Gamra Mohammed, a mother of 10 who has been camped here for the past five months, said: “They murdered my husband and brothers. My children are starving and I do not know what to do.”

Some 10,000 people are believed to have died in the war between government forces and rebels of the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement.

More than a million were displaced from their homes and 100,000 were forced across the border into neighboring Chad.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir pledged on Saturday to disarm the Janjaweed and rein in the militia groups. The government is also encouraging IDPs to return home, and according to Governor Adam, all of them should be out of the camps by the end of August.

But IDPs said they will stay put until they are satisfied that the causes of their flight have been resolved.

Abu Abaker said: “The enemy is still out there, we cannot return to our villages.”

Another man added: “We would rather die here.”

The camp residents also charge that government military aircrafts remain in action in the region despite an April 8 ceasefire deal with the rebels.

On June 18 a government Antonov bombed the area, killing one person and injuring three others, according to one camp resident.

The dusty, blazing hot camps offer few distractions. The men spend the day worrying, while the women try to gather wood to cook the little food they have.

Children, many of them malnourished, run around with distended bellies. Nearly all look like they have not had a bath for days, and their ragged clothes need washing, evidence of the water shortage in the camps.

International humanitarian agencies say Darfur stands on the brink of starvation and warn that unless assistance is delivered immediately, many could perish.

The humanitarian crisis has been exacerbated by the actions of the Janjaweed, who have drawn worldwide condemnation.

The displacement has also had an adverse effect on town-dwellers, who relied on the surrounding villages for their food. The villages have been unable to produce much this year, and as one aid worker put it, “the food pipeline has been broken.”

Governor Adam claims the villages are now safe enough for the people to return and resume their normal lives, but the inmates at the Riyadh camp, including Yacoub, are not convinced.

Yacoub folds the X-ray under her arm and, with some difficulty, walks back to her dingy little shelter, not knowing what the next day might bring.