*45 per cent of older people claimed not to have proper shelter;
*61 per cent of older people claimed to have a chronic disease that
needed specialised treatment or drugs, which were not available to
them;
"The research found few people older people had adequate food, either
in quality or quantity. Around 20 per cent were only eating one meal a
day. Often they were sharing rations with orphaned and separated
children, not always related, in their care. Those not receiving food,
had missed out on registration due to disability or being unable to
move
without support or a guide. Half of all the older people interviewed by
HelpAge International live alone, most are widows, without extended
family support." ("Older people are neglected in Darfur," HelpAge
International, April 11, 2005)
A more accurate registration of the elderly would certainly show a much
larger conflict-affected population in Darfur, as well as much greater
dependence on international food and medical relief. As this writer
has noted on a number of previous occasions over the past year and a half,
under-reporting of the Darfur crisis---including the number of victims
and the scale of humanitarian need---has been a chronic feature of the
international response from almost the very beginning.
It is also important that the growing needs for food and medical relief
in neighboring Chad not be ignored. Chad, which has been burdened from
the beginning of the Darfur conflict with a huge refugee influx in an
eastern border region that can barely provide subsistence to the local
Chadian population, has been little discussed in recent months by
humanitarian organizations; but there are ominous signs. The UN High
Commission for Refugees recently noted significant increases in severe
malnutrition in refugee camps along the Chad/Darfur border, and the UN
World Food Program today issued an urgent warning:
"The UN World Food Programme has warned that unless donations are
rapidly forthcoming, nearly 200,000 refugees who have fled into Chad
from the Darfur conflict in neighbouring Sudan risk going hungry in the
months ahead. WFP is appealing for US$87 million in food aid to cover
needs in the refugee camps of eastern Chad until the end of next year.
However, contributions are urgently needed to ensure sufficient stocks
are delivered to the camps ahead of this year's rainy season, during
which road transport becomes all but impossible across most of the
region. 'We need food now,' said WFP Chad Country Director Stefano
Porretti. 'With the rains only a matter of two or three months away, it
is absolutely imperative that we move food to the places where it will
be needed later this year. This process has already begun but is far
from complete.'"
"Under a revision of its current emergency operation, WFP will also be
assisting over 150,000 Chadian nationals as well as providing for the
possibility that an additional 150,000 people could cross the border
from Darfur if the conflict continues." (UN World Food Program
statement, April 12, 2005)
In other words, the total population in Chad in need of humanitarian
assistance could reach to 500,000: 200,000 current Darfuri refugees;
150,000 local Chadians who have been overwhelmed by the presence of
such
a large refugee population in the impoverished border region; and
another 150,000 Darfuris who may flee to Chad because of ongoing
violence in Darfur, again of the sort witnessed in Khor Abeche. This
part of Chad is inaccessible from N'Djamena to the west during the
rainy season, and the alternative supply route (overland from Libya) cannot
possibly supply even the current refugee population. Extremely
expensive airlifting of food will be the only alternative, and there is
no such airlift capacity in the Darfur humanitarian theater. This is
an extremely vulnerable refugee population.
HUMANITARIAN NEED AND INSECURITY
In addition to an acute food crisis, water supplies continue to dwindle
in Darfur even as problems in current water provisions for the camps
are revealed more conspicuously. Gallab camp for displaced persons in
North Darfur is only one of many examples that have recently been reported:
"In February [2005], an interagency assessment found that 14,000 IDPs
in the Gallab Internally Displace Persons camp in North Darfur were
sharing two hand-pumps with limited capacity to cover their water
needs." (US Agency for International Development "fact sheet" on Darfur,
April
8, 2005)
Two hand-pumps for 14,000 people.
Like so many humanitarian issues in Darfur, many of the current
shortcomings in water supplies can be directly related to insecurity.
The US Agency for International Development "fact sheet" for April 1,
2005 reports:
"Insecurity [throughout Darfur] has reduced the number of accessible
water sources, at the same time that accessible water sources are
becoming more scarce from declining water tables, slow recharge rates,
and lack of maintenance for wells and pumps."
These humanitarian realities collectively have led recently to more
urgent warning from various INGOs (International Nongovernmental
Organizations) and UN organizations, although the urgency that should
have informed these warnings is belated in many quarters. Moreover,
continuing violence has quietly produced over the past couple of months
a net reduction in the presence of international aid organizations and
corresponding capacity on the ground (this decline is not reflected in
the UN Darfur Humanitarian Profiles, which provide much too superficial
and mechanical an account of humanitarian capacity). Some of this is
clearly a response to Khartoum's strategy of obstructionism and
intimidation, recently highlighted by Human Rights Watch:
"The Sudanese government has sought to intimidate humanitarian relief
agencies in Darfur by arbitrarily arresting or detaining at least 20
aid workers since December, Human Rights Watch said today. In several
incidents, the rebel movements in Darfur have also detained or attacked
aid workers. Human Rights Watch called on all parties to the conflict
in Darfur to ensure the safety of humanitarian aid workers and facilitate
their access to Sudanese civilians in need of assistance. 'The Sudanese
authorities are using the same strong-arm tactics against Darfur aid
workers that they have used against human rights defenders,' said Peter
Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. 'Donor governments
should condemn Khartoum's attempts to intimidate aid workers and others
assisting civilians in Sudan.'"
"Few of the humanitarian organizations involved have publicized the
arrests and detentions due to fear of further reprisals by the Sudanese
government against their staff, activities and the displaced persons
they assist." (Human Rights Watch, "Darfur: Aid Workers Under Threat,"
April 5, 2005)
These ominous realities were highlighted in the most recent UN Darfur
Humanitarian Profile (March 1, 2005; Nos. 11/12) as well:
"Increasing levels of harassment, detentions, accusations through
national media outlets and others security incidents involving relief
workers are placing further strains on humanitarian operations. Though
responsible for the overwhelming majority of incidents, the Government
of Sudan is not the only party guilty of intimidating humanitarians and
denying Darfurians access to humanitarian assistance." [The insurgency
groups are here criticized.] (UN Darfur Humanitarian Profile Nos.11/12,
page 5)
Extremely serious and threatening security incidents also continue to
be reported with ominous frequency, and these are part of the reason
that there has been a net decline in humanitarian capacity on the part
of humanitarian INGO's. The most recent "fact sheet" from the US
Agency for International Development (which saw one of its workers shot and
nearly killed on the road between Nyala and Kass in a recent incident
clearly involving the Janjaweed) reports: "According to the USAID Disaster
Assistance Response Team, on April 6
[2005], a two-vehicle non-governmental organization humanitarian convoy
was fired upon near Teige, approximately 7 kilometers west of Mershing,
South Darfur. The lead vehicle was hit three times and the second
vehicle was hit twice and received a flat tire. No one was injured."
(US Agency for International Development "fact sheet," April 8, 2005)
Such incidents, particularly if they again result in fatalities, could
easily trigger an additional exodus of humanitarian presence and
capacity.
At the current annual meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission in
Geneva, a series of observations by Emmanuel Akwei Addo ("the
independent UN expert on the situation of human rights in Sudan")
should be noted carefully, particularly his comments that "aid workers were
pulling back due to deteriorating security," that "2,000 African Union
troops lacked power to deter crimes in the remote region of [Darfur],"
and in particular, that "aerial bombardment [by Khartoum] still goes
on" (Reuters, April 8, 2005):
"The Khartoum government, which had responsibility to protect all
citizens, had ignored repeated demands to disarm the militia who are
waging a ruthless campaign in near total impunity, according to Addo, a
justice from Ghana." (Reuters, April 8, 2005)
Addo's metaphor of a "time bomb" seems highly unfortunate ("the present
situation in Darfur is [ ] a time bomb, which could explode at any
moment"), given the realities of genocide by attrition in Darfur that
have so far claimed approximately 400,000 lives since February 2003
(see "Darfur Mortality Update: March 11, 2005 at
http://www.sudanreeves.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=44&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0).
But the metaphor at least serves to suggest how much greater human
destruction may become, precipitously, if the status quo prevails. For
despite the exorbitant human destruction and displacement that has
already occurred, a huge upsurge in mortality is increasingly likely in
the near term.
In light of these disturbing developments, the need for humanitarian
intervention only becomes more urgent. To be sure, international
determination to avoid honestly confronting this issue continues to
prevail---at the UN, in Washington, and in European capitals. But
neither dishonesty nor callous silence can change the massive
demographics of Darfur's catastrophe.
THE LARGEST DEMOGRAPHICS OF DARFUR'S CATASTROPHE
Recent UN comments from UNICEF offer an unusual and grimly welcome
acknowledgement of the larger demographic realities of the Darfur
crisis:
"Some four million people in Sudan's strife-torn western region of
Darfur face deeper hardship over the next 18 months because local crops
have collapsed, the UN Children's Fund said Friday [April 8, 2005].
Crops had not been tended because of the violence in the region and the
situation was being aggravated by a worsening drought, according to
UNICEF spokesman Damien Personnaz. 'The next 18 months will be
extremely difficult at the humanitarian level,' he told journalists. 'About
four
million people are threatened by food insecurity and one million under
five year-olds are suffering or will suffer from severe malnutrition,'
Personnaz added."
"One million under five year-olds are suffering or will suffer from
severe malnutrition" represents a statistic almost too horrific to
contemplate.
"The UNICEF official estimated that about two-thirds of the local
population were 'still out of reach of humanitarian networks.' 'We only
have access to two million people out of the six million that the
region had before the conflict,' he said." (Agence France-Presse, April 8,
2005)
These staggeringly large numbers occur in the context of unrelenting
violence by Khartoum and its militia proxies, exemplified in the
"savage," "premeditated" (the word choices of the UN and African
Union) attack on Khor Abeche. The agricultural economy of Darfur has
collapsed; food inflation threatens to produce huge increases in the
food-dependent population; and rural populations not only remain
vulnerable to attack but have lost much of their ability to forage
because of relentless Janjaweed predations. There are clearly
insufficient humanitarian resources; indeed, it must be emphasized
again, there has been a quietly declining humanitarian resource base,
even as the most perilous phase of the Darfur crisis approaches with
the impending seasonal rains.
For additional context we should consider the results of a March 2005
US Agency for International Development DART (Disaster Assistance
Response Team) assessment, conducted in a rural area in North Darfur
that is beyond humanitarian reach. Despite its despite locality, the
assessment suggests a good deal about the conditions defining life for
a huge percentage of this "two-thirds of [Darfur's population] still out
of reach of humanitarian networks" (UNICEF description):
"The [US Agency for International Development] assessment concluded
that traditional coping mechanisms are being depleted for both
internally displaced persons (IDPs) and host communities as a result of
ongoing conflict. In addition, conflict has eroded much of the
population's livelihoods through the looting of animals,
inaccessibility of migratory routes for pasture and water, and distance from
markets
for the sale of livestock and purchase of grains/cereals." (US AID "fact
sheet," April 1, 2005)
These enormously destructive economic realities, as well as the
continuing threat of spiraling food inflation, prevail throughout
Darfur and will do so for the foreseeable future.
ABSTRACTIONS OR HUMAN BEINGS: OUR CHOICE SPEAKS FOR US
As Khartoum continues with its tightening clamp-down on news reporting
in Darfur, as journalists encounter more and more difficulties in
securing visas, travel permits, and the means of moving through Darfur,
there is a danger that the crisis will become excessively
"statistical"---not so much invisible as lacking the kind of
visibility that must compel even the most obtuse moral instincts. It
will not be the first time that abstraction has made the intolerable
somehow too wearying for energetic response, or that sheer size and
scale have made the unspeakable the occasion for callous silence.
In a harrowing op/ed yesterday in the International Herald Tribune, Lt.
General Romeo Dallaire, UN force commander in Rwanda during the 1994
genocide, reflects on the reasons for international failure in
situations such as Darfur:
"Above all, there is a tendency to be too abstract both in identifying
causes and in assigning blame for the total lack of a serious
international response. [ ]
"If there is any useful lesson that can be drawn from the events of
April 1994, it is surely one about just how personal genocide is: for
those who are killed, of course, but also for those who kill, and for
those, however far away, who just do nothing. Our governments are no
better than we are. The United Nations is no better than its
governments." (International Herald Tribune, April 11, 2005)
"Our governments are no better than we are. The United Nations is no
better than its governments." As the international community continues
in its refusal to stop genocide in Darfur, there could be no more
damning indictment of us all.
Eric Reeves
Smith College
Northampton, MA 01063
413-585-3326
[email protected]
www.sudanreeves.org
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