Darfuris hold high hopes for new Darfur force

October 25, 2007 (ABU SHOUK CAMP, Sudan) — Darfuris who have waited almost five years in miserable camps have high expectations for a joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force due to deploy by the end of the year.

The 26,000-strong mission will take over from the struggling AU peacekeepers who have failed to stem the violence which has killed an estimated 200,000 and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises in Sudan’s west.

The more than 2 million who have been driven by rape, killing and looting from their homes to the camps which they say are rife with the same violence they fled from want the new peacekeepers to guarantee their safety, remove settlers from their lands and disarm the militias who drove them away.

But while the force hopes to be able to at least protect civilians, Khartoum refused to allow it any disarmament mandate and it is lacking key attack helicopters and other logistical needs which Western nations have so far not stepped up to provide, casting serious doubts on its efficiency.

Hawa Abdallah Mohamed fled a vicious attack on her village in North Darfur 4-1/2 years ago to el-Fasher, Darfur’s main town, and later to Abu Shouk camp, created by aid workers to house those squatting in squalid conditions in the town.

She says she’s been waiting for the force for years and wants it to protect her and her family within the very camp in which she sought refuge in 2003.

“It’s so important that this force, which we have asked for so long, will protect us in the camps where we now find the same rape and killing we fled from,” the 23-year-old said.

She says her brother was abducted after the government and the Janjaweed attacked her village, burning and looting all the houses. The International Committee for the Red Cross found him seven months later, enslaved by cattle herders in South Darfur and reunited them.

Mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003 accusing central government of neglect. Khartoum mobilized militia, known locally as Janjaweed, to quell the revolt.

Khartoum says the camps are politicized and infiltrated by rebels. They say 9,000 have died in the conflict and say the Janjaweed are just bandits.

Elderly Khadija Ibrahim Mahmoud said she saw the Janjaweed burn houses down around toddlers still lying in their beds.

“The forces have to come as quickly as possible and then life will be better,” she said. “Otherwise there’s no future.”

Many in the camps are too scared to talk to foreigners for fear of harassment or arrest by government authorities.

Tribal leader Umda Salah Bakhour was arrested three times after visits by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and top U.S. African official Jendayi Frazer.

But he is not afraid. He has seen a lot.

Militia and government forces raided his village in North Darfur in 2002, before the outbreak of major revolt. After three days of bombing and ground assaults he tried to move the weak and wounded out of the area.

But he encountered militia who beat them, killed others and gang raped the women including his 14-year-old cousin, forcing him to watch or be shot dead.

After walking for days he made it to the outskirts of el-Fasher, but said authorities refused them entry.

“A lot of people got sick and died of malnutrition, diarrhea and infections,” he said. “I watched 27 children and 16 old people die in front of my eyes.”

He says the new force had to come to the camps, have bases there and not just stay in the towns far away from the people in order to succeed.

“They must come directly to the camps and listen to the people not just ask the government what’s happening,” he said.

Many in the camps feel the small, inexperienced AU force has become too close to the government and some larger camps burned down the AU police posts within.

The new force will have to work hard and fast not to lose the trust of the people.

“They are so late for Darfur because we have been living a tragedy,” said 24-year-old Ishaq Ismail Adam. Just three weeks ago he was walking in the camp when an armed man shot his friend in the head in front of him.

“Do we need to pay them to make them come? I want to ask a high-level U.N. official just what do you want us to do so you can come?”