Darfur refugees want to return home but fear continuing danger
By Simon Apiku
El-FESHIR, Sudan, July 5 (AFP) — The displaced of Darfur say they want to believe the Sudanese government is serious about ending the humanitarian crisis in their impoverished region and disarming the militias that continue to terrorize the people.
But few of them are sure they can take the government at its word.
One of them is Zafra Zoliman, a mother of six who has lived for the past four months in the Zamzam camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) outside El-Feshir, capital of North Darfur state.
She fled her village of Tarni after saying it was bombed by government Antonov aircraft and attacked by the Janjaweed, government-backed Arab militias notorious for their wholesale destruction of villages populated by non-Arabs.
“They dropped bombs on our village,” she says, as she begins to talk of her suffering in Zamzam’s myriad of makeshift huts.
Soliman lost not only her home but also 10 members of her family.
Wearing brightly-colored scraps of cloth over a dirty dress, she begins to breast-feed her crying baby.
More women come out of the little huts, some of which are covered with blue plastic sheeting.
Between 7,000 and 10,000 people are living in the camp, mostly women and women. Food is becoming scarce, the children are out of school and medical supplies are limited.
Those seriously ill must travel on donkeys or by foot in the blazing heat to El-Feshir and pay for medical treatment.
“We used to sell the little food we brought in order to pay for treatment, but that’s finished,” Soliman explains.
Now, to compound the problems, the first rains have begun to fall.
Some of the dirt roads used to bring in supplies may become impassable, and the huts are not built to withstand the rain.
“The rain goes through the roof,” says Ahmed Saleh Hassan, a resident in his early 40s. There is not much protection except for the plastic sheeting, which not all of the people have.
And ponds of standing rainwater from the first rains have increased the number of malaria cases, the United Nations reported last week.
Yet with all the hardship, it is difficult to find anyone willing to leave the relative safety of the camp and return home.
Not far from where Soliman was feeding her baby, a group of women had gathered last week around visiting UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who listened intently as they pleaded with him not to let the government repatriate them.
Earlier, Annan had met with the men and the issue of forced repatriation was also raised.
“We are ready to go now if there is security and food,” one man told the UN chief.
But there is none of that in the villages, at least not yet.
Annan spoke with Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir the next day, and their meeting resulted in a joint communique giving Annan and the internal refugees what they had demanded.
Very importantly for the IDPs, the statement said any return of the displaced to their homes would be done voluntarily.
It also pledged to “ensure that no militias are present in all areas surrounding IDP camps” and to “immediately start to disarm the Janjaweed and other armed outlaw groups”.
Beshir has named the interior minister, General Abdul Rahim Mohammed Hussein, as his representative for Darfur. He has tasked him with ensuring the safe delivery of assistance to the needy, restoring security and disarming the militia groups.
And Hussein has been talking tough.
“We will take measures against them,” he told reporters during Annan’s visit to North Darfur. He added that he was deploying a 6,000-strong police in Darfur to insure that his orders are carried out.
In the meantime, attacks continue, including a recent one on a World Food Program convoy in West Darfur.
A UN report recently said unknown perpetrators reportedly looted a truck full of blankets and two trucks of food, killed the man facilitating the convoy and injured the two drivers.
Just as Soliman feared.