“Hybrids” take back night in dangerous Darfur camps

February 17, 208 (KRINDING CAMP) — The soothing tones of West Indian reggae stopped abruptly and the U.N.-African Union peacekeepers left their vehicles to face a machine gun pointed at them by a Sudanese soldier crouched in a trench.

But as more white peacekeeping vehicles emerged from the darkness at the army checkpoint outside West Darfur’s capital el-Geneina the Sudanese soldiers, heads wrapped in cloth to shield them from the harsh sandy wind, broke into smiles and friendly greetings.

The “hybrids”, as the new United Nations-AU force of 9,000 is called in Darfur, were on night patrol — an initiative by the peacekeepers’ newly energized leadership which some count as their first success.

The patrols began after U.N.-AU troops, known as UNAMID, took over peacekeeping in Darfur from AU forces on December 31. They were designed to tackle one of the most entrenched problems in Sudan’s violent west.

Armed men had roamed the camps at night with near impunity while thousands of displaced Darfuris cowered in the dark, too afraid to talk for fear they would be discovered by the gangs who have raped, murdered and pillaged their way through the civilian population for five years.

“We are always hearing shooting and men come in and attack us,” said Youssef Abdel Rahman, a leader at the Krinding Camp outside el-Geneina town.

But in the few weeks since the hybrid forces began regular night patrols around the camp, there has not been a single live fire incident and U.N.-AU troops do not generally encounter armed men, who locals call Janjaweed, along the way.

“If you’re a criminal you don’t stick around to talk,” said Nigerian A.A. Adeyemo, a UNAMID patrol leader.

Abdel Rahman said the sound of gunfire left with them.

“Now it’s not there anymore. That improvement has been since the UNAMID has come. … Now we can sleep better,” he added.

HUGE EXPECTATIONS

The 2.5 million Darfuris driven from their homes since mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003 have huge expectations that the joint U.N.-AU force will protect them from attacks in a way 7,000 AU forces were not able to alone.

The AU had lacked the manpower and equipment to protect civilians caught in the crossfire of the conflict pitting the rebels against the government and feared Janjaweed militias, and which has grown worse over the years as splinter groups turned into opportunistic bandits.

It has not been an easy road for the U.N.-AU mission so far. Pledges for equipment and troops have been slow in coming — at the moment only about 9,000 of an expected force of 26,000 is on the ground in Darfur.

The government in Khartoum has been accused of imposing difficult restrictions on UNAMID.

It had been reluctant to allow the night patrols and more than once, nervous Sudanese at army check points have almost opened fire on the peacekeepers mistaking them for rebels in the most militarily active part of Darfur, officers said.

Adeyemo said the first time UNAMID went out they took two Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs) for high security and also because they made so much noise the Sudanese army would know who was coming and not open fire.

But while the patrols have their tense moments, there is also time for relaxation. Soldiers in one vehicle played reggae and brought bread and other food to Darfuris in the camps surviving on U.N. rations like wheat, sugar and oil.

“OUR BROTHERS”

Driving through the deep sandy tracks two vehicles got stuck in a dry river bed and an APC had to drag them out. Meanwhile men on horseback and a jeep full of heavily armed men in mufti raced past.

“We love you so much for having come — you are our brothers,” said Mohamed Abakr, a Darfuri who came to talk to the soldiers as they pushed their vehicle out of the sand.

The drivers know their way well, picking along through the shrub-covered terrain in the pitch black, stopping at army checkpoints and surprising men hanging around in the streets.

They even know which tiny clay hut down which narrow alley houses the local leaders who wake up to greet the soldiers.

“The hybrid coming to see us at night is very good,” said Ismail Ali, a senior tribal leader of Ardamata Camp outside el-Geneina.

“There are not many problems as there were before. It’s going well now.”

But he said with concern, the 9,000 troops were not enough to protect Darfuris so they could go back to the villages and farms they left during the years of fighting.

“Nine-thousand is too little,” he said. “Here we have 9,000 Janjaweed and until now the government is still arming them. … These Janjaweed are roaming around outside like grains of sand – there are so many.”

(Reuters)