Darfur Crisis
Last updated 5/8/2008 2:53:08 PM
The general security and humanitarian aid situation throughout Darfur continues to be bad. This comes even as United Nations peacekeeping troops are scheduled to be deployed in the region.
Darfur has been described as one of the world''s worst humanitarian crises in recent times. Even with the presence of international peacekeeping forces from the African Union, fears continue to persist of the elimination of several ethnic groups by Arab militia groups backed by the Sudanese government.
For decades there has been conflict within Sudan. The 20-year civil war between the north and the south of the country ended in 2005 with the signing of the comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) and the south has experienced relative security for the past couple years. However, low-level conflict between various armed groups in the Darfur region significantly escalated in 2003. The Darfur conflict was (and continues to be) characterised by cross-border skirmishes into Chad and a reign of terror against people, with villages being attacked and thousands of people displaced.
Fighting between rebel groups and the Janjaweed, a government-backed militia, has directly affected more than two million people. There have been systematic arbitrary executions of civilians, rape, and torture, looting and burning of entire villages.
As a result, thousands of refugees fled from Darfur to eastern Chad and by July 2003, 65,000 people had crossed the border to relative safety. By the end of 2003 this number had swelled to 93,000 and in 2007 there are about 200,000 living in 12 refugee camps with approximately 20,000 more living along the border.
The dynamics of conflict in eastern Chad today are essentially threefold. Set against a canvas of a greater quest for overall power in the country, cross-border militia raids and internal fighting mark a more local context in the east. At one level it can be seen as a history of “great men”: a history of coups in which the next contender for the prize of power builds his strength and displaces the last when he is big and strong enough. At another it is a spill-over from the conflict in Darfur in which eastern Chad is subject to the attacks from militias which recognise no boundary. Thirdly, it is profoundly local, with different ethnic groups allied with different parties and having formed armed civil defence groups, and other people’s wars being fought out in inter-ethnic clashes which are in danger of forgetting their origins.
As with all conflict, it is the poor and marginalised who suffer. Aside from the Darfuri refugees, most of whom fled their homes in 2003 and 2004, more than 120,000 eastern Chadians are now displaced.
Access to the displaced people in Darfur by humanitarian organizations has been problematic and dangerous. As a result, very little help has reached the hundreds of thousands of displaced people and most critical is the lack of water, food, shelter and medicines.
Conditions in neighboring Chad
Aside from the chronic poverty and under-development that marks life for most Chadians, there are three groups of displaced currently in Chad. There are more than 120,000 Chadian internally-displaced people who have settled around local villages and towns in the east, having been internally displaced in eastern Chad by cross-border skirmishes by militias and more localized fighting. The Darfuri refugees themselves, the majority of whom fled Sudan in 2003 and 2004, and who currently reside in refugee camps in eastern Chad receive support through a fairly well-established assistance program. And finally refugees from the Central African Republic, less in number at 40,000 in southern Chad, who are also considered by the UN as a population whose needs relate primarily to integration and long-term development.
Needs
Food: This particular region is affected by chronic food production deficits and the arrival of thousand of Sudanese refugees has put additional pressure on limited resources, leaving the local population highly vulnerable. Limited access to food and inadequate food practices combined to place malnutrition among the main problems faced by local populations. Forty percent of children under-five suffer acute or chronic malnutrition. The under-five mortality rate is 200 per 1,000.
Water: Although underground water can be found already at a 4-8 meters depth, it is available only in small quantities. Water in some areas is abundant, but the region becomes completely inaccessible during the rainy season (due to floods).
Environment: How to integrate the refugees into thinly populated and semi-arid areas without destabilizing these, taking into account that in some cases refugees already outnumber the local population is a major challenge. The scarcity of pastureland for the significant number of refugee cattle is another constraint that poses a serious threat to the environment and to the lives of the cattle. It is absolutely necessary to ensure that the refugees do not lose this coping mechanism, and to prevent desertification.
Health: As a result of inadequate health infrastructures and services as well as insufficient health personnel in Chad, infant mortality rates are very high (105 per 1,000 births). Acute Respiratory infections are the second most frequent disease after malaria, caused by harsh weather conditions.
HIV/AIDS: HIV prevalence in doubled from 3.2% in 1999 to 6.2% in 2000. According to national statistics in Chad, HIV/AIDS left an estimated 72,000 orphans. In Sudan, approximately 500,000 cases have been identified. Reports of forced recruitment of minors, widespread rape and other forms of sexual violence against girls and boys, allows the assumption that the armed conflict and population movement within Darfur and into Chad has increased the HIV infection rates.
