Posted on 02/27/2005 5:08:41 PM PST by UnklGene
Four million face starvation as war brings famine to refugees of Darfur -
By Katharine Houreld in Muhajeria (Filed: 27/02/2005)
In her ragged pink shawl, Halim Osman, 29, has walked for three hours across the Darfur desert only to see her infant son refused entry to the feeding programme run by Médecins Sans Frontières.
Exposing a small breast, she pushes him forward and pleads with the aid workers who have set up camp in this rebel-held town: "There is nothing left in my village. Everything is burnt. Please, my son is sick, he is hungry."
At 16 months, Mohammed must be fed via a tube But he is not hungry enough, and she has to leave. "We can only take children who are 80 per cent or less than their normal body weight," explains a regretful Elin Jones, the team leader. Halim's baby, it seems, is not yet thin enough to qualify.
The people of Darfur have already endured aerial bombardment, rapes and torture during an 18-month civil war that has disrupted planting and seen fields of crops torched. Now they are being stalked by a new enemy - famine.
Hunger is already widespread in this war-torn region of Sudan where, despite a shaky ceasefire, 1.5 million people are entirely dependent on aid. Jan Egeland, the UN emergency relief co-ordinator, recently warned that the death toll could pass that of the Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed 170,000 people on Boxing Day. Up to four million people would be at risk if the security situation did not improve enough to deliver food supplies, he said.
"We did prevent the massive famine that many predicted, but we may not be able to do so in the coming months if the situation keeps on deteriorating," Mr Egeland said. "Too often, the world sends us the Band-Aid, and believes that we keep people alive and that they don't have to take political and security action."
Children are always the first victims. At the feeding centre in Muhajeria, south Darfur, staff have taken the precaution of bandaging the hands of 16-month-old Mohammed, but he is far too weak to pull the feeding tube from his nose.
His eyes are closed to the flies that swarm across the lids; the skin on his stomach is wrinkled like an old man's - a classic sign of chronic dehydration.
His mother, Sawat Ise, has three other children. Though ill too, they are too old to be admitted to this programme. She, meanwhile, is suffering from an eye infection, a common result of sleeping in the open.
Sawat is one of the 1.85 million people displaced since 2003, when Darfur tribes took up arms against perceived discrimination and neglect by the central government. The Sudanese armed forces, often in concert with Arabic-speaking militias, retaliated by attacking villages. The militias, or Janjaweed, have a history of conflict with the African tribes but the government's twin gifts of immunity and automatic weapons escalated traditional tensions into all-out war.
Sawat fled her village after a dawn attack by the Janjaweed, walking 16 miles to safety with her husband, each of them carrying two children. "We left all our food and cattle and ran away into the bush," she said. "Some of my neighbours were killed. I have nothing."
Despite her problems, Sawat is one of the luckier ones. In mid-December, the Médecins Sans Frontières team had to evacuate the town of Muhajeria and slash the number of children admitted into the programme by more than half.
Thousands of Janjaweed and soldiers had attacked nearby Labados and Muhajeria was feared to be the next target. "We couldn't get any foodstocks in,'' said Ms Jones, from Wales. The numbers had to be cut for the team to have enough food for the sickest people. "You have to make hard decisions," she said.
For some of her refugees, being evacuated from Muhajeria was the third time they had been displaced. The area is still unstable: Janjaweed raids on villages in south Darfur are common and on the road between Muhajeria and the regional capital, Nyala, robberies occur almost daily. Food cannot reach the towns, and prices go up for what few products there are.
In the nearby mountains of eastern Jebel Mara, Janjaweed attacks have hampered even the aid agencies' food deliveries. Last week, however, the first convoy for four months ventured into the area and distributed 14 lorry loads of grain to desperate villagers.
Local leaders complain that the government is thwarting efforts to get food through. "The government blocks the roads that people use for trade," complained Omar Abido, the traditional ruler of Muhajeria. "Sugar used to be 1,000 dinars a bag. Now it is 1,500. Benzine used to be 30,000 dinars a barrel. Now it is 70,000.
"The government diverts all commercial lorries that are supposed to come through here," he said. "There have been no trucks from Khartoum for three months."
For Halim Osman, pausing to stare in blank reproach through the woven grass fence before wandering dejectedly away from the feeding station, the outlook is bleak: compounding problems on the ground, the World Food Programme has so far received only 55 per cent of the £274 million that it appealed for last year.
Aloys Sema, the WFP officer for south Darfur, said: "If no more assistance is forthcoming it will be a disaster."
Hmmm.. Maybe the United Nations should have a conference about a plan to discuss a meeting to schedule a discussion about a sit-down to talk about planning to meet about a planned plan to evaluate the prospects of possibly meeting about a decision regarding the issuing of a resolution declaring that the situation in Darfur is a bad thing.
Bones
HA HA HA, you be zacklie right
"Nah, to much trouble...with little prospects of kickbacks it just isn't worth it"
Are you sure? You sure you don't want to talk about sitting down to plan to meet to decide whether to discuss that?
/u.n.
Okay, I'll stop.. sorry I got on a roll there with that.... it's addictive..LOL
Bones
Actually in Darfur it isn't. It's Muslim blacks that are a little bit Arab being massacred by Muslim blacks who are slightly more Arab.
Check out the names in the story, for example.
Thank you, Yes I realize that, I was generalizing my comments for all of Sudan, and the lack of the Un's actions for years, rather than just Dafur, but thx.
C'mon freepers! E-Mail your leftovers tonight!!! Let's help the un fight this hunger!
FMCDH(BITS)
Is a fax faster than e-mail? If it is I'll get a fax machine and fax tomorrows breakfast over there now!....C'mon people! Let's help the un feed these people! We can be at least as successful as the un in this! Start e-mailing and faxing food now!
FMCDH(BITS)
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