IDPs forced to move as Khartoum settlement is demolished

NAIROBI, March 22, 2005 (IRIN) — At least 11,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) have been forced to move following the demolition of the Shikan settlement, 18 km north of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, a UN spokesperson said on Tuesday. They were now living rough in El Fateh, a desert area north of the capital, she added.

Halima Ismail, 42, a widow and mother of 7 children, one of 12,000 displaced persons from various parts of Sudan who have been living in el Fatih, an Internal Displaced Persons camp outside the Sudanese capital, Khartoum Monday, March 21, 2005. (AP).

“From 28 December, the Sudanese authorities began demolishing Shikan, an area the size of 16 football fields, as part of a re-zoning policy in Khartoum state,” Kirsten Zaat, advocacy officer at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Khartoum, told IRIN.

“Security forces arrived without advance warning and started to load IDPs onto trucks,” she said. “People [IDPs] were not allowed to bring any personal belongings, and most arrived in El Fateh with only the clothes they were wearing.”

Abd El Wahab M. Osman, Minister of Physical Planning and Utilities of Khartoum State was not available for comment but another government official, who declined to be named, said the destruction was part of a larger re-planning programme that was meant to provide plots for residents and bring them vital services such as electricity and water.

More than 13,000 IDPs, displaced by the 21-year-old war that ended in southern Sudan in January, had found shelter in Shikan, a squatter area established in the 1980s. Nuba, Majanin, Arab, Shilluk, Dinka, Masalit, Felata and Khofra were among the ethnic groups in Shikan.

Around 15 percent of the resident IDP population of Shikan was permitted to stay. The remaining 85 percent were moved to El Fateh, a desert area 38 km north of Omdurman, a city just north of Khartoum.

“At least 300,000 people are living in the El Fateh squatter area, although the area is in a constant state of flux,” Zaat said. “The entire community is made up of IDPs who have been previously moved from other IDP camps and squatter areas around Khartoum.”

The demolition of Shikan resulted in the destruction of all IDP property and infrastructure, and included the demolition of a community centre, Zaat said. It was run by a local women’s association and constituted the only source of primary health care in the area.

Zaat said Sudanese authorities had made no prior preparations to ensure the desert area of El Fateh was fit for human habitation. There was limited access to water and food, no health or education services, and no electrical grid or sanitation system.

The demolition of IDP settlements around Khartoum, which started in the 1980s, had also forced people to return to southern Sudan. However, support mechanisms along return routes have been largely absent, while host communities in south Sudan – who live in some of the poorest conditions in the world – lacked the means to sustain large numbers of returning IDPs.

Relying on income from casual labour had compounded the problems of the IDPs in El Fatah, Zaat added. Since their removal from Shikan, they had been unable to work because the cost of transport to Khartoum was higher than their potential daily wage.

“When re-planning programmes are implemented, the authorities should take all measures to minimise the adverse effects of displacement,” said the OCHA officer. “At [a] minimum, IDPs have to be given advance notification of planned demolitions – and basic services should be put in place in the areas of destination before the IDPs are moved.”

According to OCHA, the total number of IDPs in official camps and squatter areas around Khartoum in March 2005 was just over two million. Many of these came from southern Sudan, where the 21-year old conflict displaced an estimated four million people within Sudan and claimed the lives of two million others.

The conflict erupted in 1983 when southern-based rebels of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) took up arms against authorities based in the north to demand greater autonomy. On 9 January, the SPLM/A and the Sudanese government signed a comprehensive peace agreement in Nairobi, Kenya that officially ended the war.