Frightened Darfur refugees refuse to go home

By Opheera McDoom

KASS, Sudan, Sept 15 (Reuters) – Clamouring for attention, Darfur refugee women and children line up to show their war wounds.

“They killed my brothers and they beat me,” said Hawa Hussein Adam. Her wrinkled, sunburnt face gave the impression of a woman in her fifties, but Adam is just 26.

“All of them, the Arabs, the Janjaweed, they cause problems with security, and attack us” said Aman Ali Abdallah. Kass is northwest of the capital of South Darfur state, Nyala.

Since rebels in Darfur took up arms in February last year, more than a million people have fled their homes in what the United Nations calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Rebels accuse the government of arming Arab militias, known as Janjaweed (Arabic for devils on horseback), to loot and burn African villages. Khartoum denies the charge and says the Janjaweed are outlaws.

The population of Kass, about 60,000 people, has almost doubled with the influx of those who walked for days to flee the violence in the neighbouring areas, and aid officials say one of the biggest problems in the camp is insecurity and rape.

“No one’s moved from the fringes of this camp,” said Mark Fritz, an International Rescue Committee official. “Security is one of the main problems here, especially with attacking women.”

A tribal leader of the displaced in Kass said women were often raped as they left the camp to collect firewood.

“In August there were 143 women raped,” Haroun Adam said. Fritz said local law made it difficult to prove rape, but they were setting up mechanisms to deal with the problem.

Small plastic shelters just outside the camp lie empty as the government attempts to move the refugees from the schools and camps inside the town so teaching can begin. But they refuse to leave.

“We will not go. There’s no security,” said Abdallah.

More than refusing to leave the camp they say they will never go back to their villages.

“I’m not going back. I’m never going to go back,” said Saida Mohamed. She said she wanted U.S. troops to come and protect her. “I’d rather go to America, than back there,” she said.

Otash Camp, on the way back to Nyala sprang up in the last two months. It now houses 20,000 displaced villagers living in small huts made of scrap plastic bags and sticks. But they too say they will not go back.

Fatma Hashim can hardly speak. With difficulty she described how she spent six months running and hiding from Janjaweed after they burned and the government bombed her village in the Jabel Marra area, a rebel centre.

“They killed my husband with guns and my two sons. They beat them and killed them,” she said. “I am never going back. I have nothing to eat, drink there, I’ve lost my house, my sheep,” she said. “I’m staying here.”

The governor of South Darfur state, al Hajj Attar al-Manon, said he had arrested 82 Janjaweed and prosecuted more than 30 already. “We have special courts which work daily,” he told reporters.

But none of the displaced said they trusted the government.

“The Janjaweed is government. The government is Janjaweed. We have no trust and we are not going back,” said Abdallah.