Darfur: Quem é que se esqueceu dele?

It is a conflict to which the international community appears to have no answer and which risks being overshadowed by other crises in East Africa and beyond. The humanitarian and security challenges are vast. Here’s why: How did we get here? Conflict between different communities in Darfur, some encouraged by the government, started in the 1980s, and violence escalated dramatically with a rebellion in 2003. Political and economic marginalization by the Arab-dominated government of President Omar al-Bashir was a key driver of the war.

Khartoum’s counter-insurgency campaign has relied heavily on locally-recruited Arab militias who have been accused of mass killings of civilians in non-Arab areas suspected of supporting the rebels. According to the UN, the conflict has left as many as 300,000 people dead and displaced another 2.5 million. Over the years, the conflict has grown more complex, with rebel movements splintering into numerous rival factions – some of which made peace, at least temporarily – and Arab groups turning against each other and the central government in ethnic disputes often linked to land rights and political power. After years of failed international peace initiatives, and the indictment of Bashir by the International Criminal Court for crimes including genocide, the conflict has intensified since 2013 with the government launching dry-season offensives against the rebels in Darfur as well as in the neighbouring Kordofan region. Surging violence This year, government troops, including former militias now called Rapid Support Forces, have attacked settlements in purported rebel strongholds, including the Jebel Marra mountains. Recent media reports show scores of civilians sheltering in caves in the mountains, and telling of an aerial bombardment near the village of Golo in January that left an unknown number of people dead and wounded. In May, the government paraded trucks piled high with weapons, which they said had been seized from the rebel Justice and Equality Movement after a major battle in the Tullus area of South Darfur on 26 April. There have also been several major tribal clashes. Most recently, fighting broke out on 11 May between Ma’aliya and Reizegat tribesmen near the town of Abu Karinka in East Darfur state over a land dispute. The battles reportedly left hundreds of dead and wounded and displaced thousands. The two Arab tribes have clashed repeatedly in recent years, despite mediation efforts. Hundreds were killed and thousands displaced by fighting between the two groups in the area last year. In North Darfur state, a series of deadly attacks this year has fomented tensions between the Berti and Zayadia tribes and displaced thousands more people. Berti student leaders reportedly suspect Musa Hilal, a prominent Arab militia chief, of stirring trouble. Hilal is a political rival to North Darfur’s Berti governor, Osman Mohamed Yousif Kibir, who is accused of recruiting an ethnic militia of his own. Thousands of people, mostly women and children, take refuge at a safe zone adjacent to UNAMID's base in Um Baru, North Darfur.The newly displaced people fled from different villages which had been reportedly attacked. Displacement In all, about 430,000 people have been displaced in Darfur since the start of 2014, bringing the total in the region to 2.5 million, according to the UN. Some 1.5 million of those are children. About 3.1 million people are displaced in Sudan as a whole. Aristide Nononsi, the UN independent expert on human rights in Sudan, said after visiting Darfur in May that the displaced were living in fear of armed groups and criminality. While most displaced people want to go back to their homelands, “many interlocutors whom I met, in particular in North and South Darfur states, remain anxious about the security situation in their areas of origin … as well as the restoration of sustainable peace in the region,” Nononsi said in a statement. The fighting around Abu Karinka reportedly saw more than 650 homes burned, and an estimated 24,000 families displaced. Hundreds more families fled with their livestock to North Kordofan state before violence broke out, according to the UN’s humanitarian coordination body, Ocha. “The victims are in need of water, food, shelter and medecines,” East Darfuri humanitarian aid commissioner Abdu Abdelmahmoud said on 15 May. According to Unicef, the UN children’s agency, more than 9,000 new displaced people had arrived in the Mellit locality alone as a result of the fighting between the Berti and Zayadia tribes. It said it was assisting newly displaced people in seven other locations in North Darfur. Assistance According to Damien Rance, Ocha’s spokesman in Khartoum, about 1.5 million of those displaced in Darfur live in camps or “camp-like settings”. “The provision of basic services in these locations, relative to the rest of Darfur, is mostly adequate,” Rance said. “The quality of basic service delivery, however, has deteriorated over the years as the number of displaced people continues to grow, fewer NGOs remain to deliver these services, reduced funding is being channeled to these services, and the political interest of the international community wanes.” A Unamid peacekeeper in Tawila, North Darfur, where armed clashes have led to a volatile security situation and displacement of innocent civilians. Access A long-standing problem facing humanitarian agencies in Darfur has been access to vulnerable populations, particularly in active conflict zones. After the violence in Abu Karinka, for example, Ocha said humanitarian partners were standing by to move food, emergency shelters and household items. However, authorities have denied Unamid – the joint African Union-UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur – access to the town to carry out an assessment. “The government has said that, at this stage, it is providing all of the aid that is required,” said Rance. “The international humanitarian community stands ready, willing and able to assist.” More broadly, Ocha said that access restrictions and insecurity had prevented it from verifying the situation of 92,000 people of those reportedly displaced by recent fighting, including in the Jebel Marra mountains. Food Security Militias allied with the government have long been accused of adopting “scorched-earth” tactics, destroying homes and livelihoods in rebel strongholds and thus contributing to high levels of malnutrition. According to Unicef, some 2 million Sudanese children under the age of five suffer from chronic malnutrition, of whom 550,000 are severely malnourished and at risk of death. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which resumed work in Sudan in September after an eight-month suspension, recently appealed to donors for more funds to enable it to expand operations in Darfur. “The ongoing conflict is still taking a heavy toll on civilians,” said Eric Marclay, ICRC’s head of operations for East Africa. “We want to assist both the displaced and host communities directly … seed and tools are needed now to prepare for the next planting season. The additional funding will also finance medical care and the building of water and sanitation facilities.” The Guardian June 2015