Darfur Camps "Seething Dens of Frustration"

by Michael Kleinman

Published November 21, 2008 @ 09:00AM PST

I’m traveling at the moment, so keeping this one somewhat short – wanted to pass along an interesting AFP article that appeared earlier this week, looking at the “seething” frustration within the Darfur camps that shelter millions of people.

There are currently almost 2.7 million IDPs – internally displaced persons – in Darfur, scattered among an estimated 80 camps. Many have been living in the camps for years.

According to one camp resident:

“Five years in the camp is like prison. We’ve been dragged into these IDP camps, which is completely inhuman. As youths, we are unable to move around. We are suffering from a lack of jobs. If women go outside, they are raped. If youth go outside, they are killed. People are afraid. They are very sad because there is no work, no freedom and no skills to learn. People are angry and confused.”

This anger is beginning to boil over. Wariara Mbugua, Chief of Civil Affairs for UNAMID, the joint AU-UN peacekeeping force, is particularly concerned about how the situation affects youth within the camps:

“You have young people who are growing without hope and they are going to be susceptible to anything in the future, whether it’s criminal activity, whether it’s just picking up a gun.”

Crime within the camps is on the rise, including threats against aid workers. As UN official described:

“We’ve had people with put in their faces, robbed at night – UN staff, NGOs this has happened to – and in some place it’s been a lot more frequent and almost daily…When it happens almost every day and it’s targeting humanitarian organizations, is it a sign of someone just not happy with them? Or a sign that it’s time for you to go? Or is it ‘I don’t have food to feed my family so I’m going to take your laptop and I’m going to sell it in the market for 100 dollars or so?”

Continued after the jump:

The UN is also concerned that frustration will turn the camps into a fertile recruiting ground for rebel movements. In fact, the Sudanese Government often uses this as an excuse to move against the camps – for instance, an attack against Kalma camp in August left over thirty people dead.

According to Sorour Abdellah, the Sudanese Government’s Humanitarian Affairs Coordinator for South Darfur:

“These camps are used by the rebels to ignite public opinion against the government. We have the right to find a way to make the displaced return home.”

Of course, as Martha recently pointed out on the genocide blog, the Sudanese Government has a long and storied tradition of appointing humanitarian officials who aren’t particularly sympathetic to those they’re theoretically supposed to help.

The best example being Ahmed Haroun, whom the President Bashir appointed Minister of State for Humanitarian Affairs after he was indicted by the ICC for war crimes, such as inciting the janjaweed to attack the same people he's now responsible for helping.

Yet at the end of the day, the IDPs are still trapped – without a peace process, it’s still too dangerous to return home. As another AFP article described, many are terrified to leave the camps, convinced they’ll be attacked and killed. In the meantime, the situation in the camps grows worse.

(N.B. – To give credit where credit is due, it seems a number of people in the camps agree with my co-blogger Michelle, that the only way to resolve the conflict is to bring Bashir to trial. For more information, see this recent article, quoting a number of people in Kalma camp. According to one woman, “If [Bashir] doesn’t go to trial, we will stay in the camps.” That said, I’m still concerned that actually prosecuting Bashir will in fact make the situation much worse, not least by sparking more attacks against the camps.)

Random quote: “Though much is taken, much abides: an tho’ / We are not now that strength which in the old days / Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are / One equal temper of heroic hearts / Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will / To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield.” (Tennyson, Ulysses)

[Photo of children at an IDP camp in North Darfur from Reuters / Salon]