Darfur security worsening – UN
November 30, 2007 (EL-NEEM CAMP, Sudan) — A decline in security and bureaucratic obstacles are hindering the world’s largest aid operation in Sudan’s Darfur region, the U.N. humanitarian chief said on Friday.
Darfuris who tried to answer John Holmes’s questions were intimidated by Sudanese officials as he toured the El-Neem camp, which houses some 50,000 Darfuris driven from their villages by tribal clashes and fighting between army and rebels.
It was Holmes’s second visit to Darfur, where U.N. experts estimate that 200,000 people have been killed in four years of fighting, and 2.2 million have been displaced from their homes.
“I think the security situation is probably worse now than it was eight months ago,” Holmes said. “Carjackings at gunpoint — this is almost a daily occurrence.”
He also said aid workers continued to face problems gaining exit visas and travel permits.
The population of the el-Neem camp has exploded from 15,000 a year ago to 50,000 as fighting has emptied nearby villages.
Heavily armed police crammed into trucks escorted Holmes to the camp, sending the African Union troops who were due to protect him back to their base.
Holmes also brought his own security detail, who carried rifles, hand guns and knives, clearly making him uncomfortable.
The usual welcoming crowds were noticeably absent, and as Holmes walked through the camp, Sudanese security men wearing dark glasses loomed intimidatingly over the shoulder of anyone he spoke to, preventing any private dialogue.
Nafisa Hassan, 35, from the non-Arab Fur tribe, said she and her nine children had walked for eight hours to reach el-Neem almost a year ago, after their village was burned down.
But before she could answer a question about who attacked them, government officials ordered her to go home.
Al-Nazir Mohamed Abdallah, from the non-Arab Tunjur tribe, who arrived in el-Neem in May, decide to brave the intimidation.
“It was the Janjaweed, they attacked us,” he said, before the official stopped the interview.
MURDER AND ARSON
The Darfur conflict erupted in 2003 when mostly non-Arab tribes took up arms, accusing the Arab-dominated Khartoum government of neglect.
The government retaliated by arming mainly Arab militias, known locally as Janjaweed, but says it is not responsible for their campaign of murder, rape, arson and plunder.
The situation has become progressively more chaotic as some militias have cut ties with Khartoum and the rebels have split into factions.
Magboula Hussein Mustafa, 25, was one of the first people to flee to el-Neem after her village was burnt in 2004.
She said many different tribes had lived together in peace in her area, but the conflict had changed all that.
“We have lost our men, our children, our villages and our homes in this war,” she said. “We were attacked, they burnt our homes and took all our things.”
Khartoum is anxious for the refugees to return home, and Holmes heard that many people wanted to go, but needed guarantees of security and water first.
“They are clearly fed up of living in camps, and who can blame them?” he said. “There’s no employment … life isn’t safe — particularly for the women.
“It’s pretty tough and they want to go home and I’m sure they will go home as soon as the conditions allow — but it’s pretty clear that the conditions don’t allow for that.”
(Reuters)