Darfur ghost town awaits return of its citizens

By Opheera McDoom

TINE, Sudan, Feb 6 (Reuters) – In the ghost town of Tine on the Chad-Sudan border, a few residents remain, camping in the hospital and the dilapidated school while they wait for their old neighbours to return.

Deserted town of Tine. the Sudanese half of the city in the strife-torn Darfur region. (AFP/file).

All 5,000 or so inhabitants of the town, in the Darfur region of western Sudan, fled in late 2003 when rebels and government forces clashed nearby and government forces bombarded the town and surrounding areas.

About 200 have returned but they live from day to day, ready to move on if the need arises.

Neighbouring Chad has taken in more than 200,000 Darfur refugees because of the conflict while inside Darfur more than 1.8 million people have fled their homes for camps, where thousands die every month from disease and malnutrition.

Bettina Adam said she fled after the rebels attacked the Tine police and government forces retaliated in July 2003. “The next day we all left,” she said.

But Adam came back three months ago and she berated the others for not returning home.

“They don’t want to do anything — they don’t want to work. This was a window of opportunity months ago and they did not take it,” she said. “They just want the problem to continue.”

Row after row of huts sit empty, some destroyed by bombing and many shops looted and burned. Rubbish and dead animal carcasses fill the sandy streets. There’s no electricity and the police complain that the well water is dirty.

Residents say they don’t go back to their houses because the authorities prefer to have them gathered together in buildings to protect or control them.

ILLEGAL ALCOHOL

A few hundred metres (yards) away across the border in Chadian Tine, the contrast is stark. The streets are lively and the market booming. Sudanese armed forces were the only people to be seen in Sudanese Tine’s market.

But Adam said she still was not going to return to Chad, where she spent a year and a half as a refugee.

“Sudan is my country. This is where I am from,” she said. Her husband works in the market selling goods, mainly to government soldiers.

For others there is no work. Hawa Adam said she had to brew illegal alcohol to survive.

“We sell it to the army and other citizens,” she said. “But the police … beat us because of this.” She said the only food they got was given to them by army soldiers.

Police Chief Salih Mubarak said the only security problems in Tine were drunkenness and hashish smuggling over the open border. “They get drunk all the time and this causes trouble,” he said. His deputy denied they beat anyone for making alcohol.

There is about one policeman for three citizens in Tine and at least 3,000 soldiers are encamped outside the town.

“This must be one of the most secure areas in Sudan,” said deputy police chief Murad Ibrahim.

Yasser Abu Bakr said just under 100 people who had returned to Sudanese Tine later went back over the border because they found no work, the town was desolate and they were running from the police for making alcohol.

“Their stories stop people coming back,” he said. “But also the people are scared. They do not believe there is now security here.”