SUDAN: Internally displaced people in Darfur worried they will not get full share of food due to fighting

Despite a recent report released by the United Nations food agency, saying that it managed to reach more people in the war-torn Darfur region in September, internally displaced refugees in the camps complain that this has been at the expense of their food rations. The World Food Programme (WFP) said that it reached more than 158,000 people in Darfur in September and that the number of people not reached has been dropping steadily from 470,000 in July to 355, 000 in August and 224,000 in September. But refugees at the Zamzam camp, south of al-Fahir, complained that the same period saw a drastic cut in their food rations, putting additional strains on families already struggling to make ends meet. "What brought us here was the war. The war waged by the Janjaweed, the bombardment of rural areas by war planes, the burnings. We fled and came here," said Ahmed Abdul Rahman Mohammed, a husband of three wives and father of 18 children. "Living conditions are rough, no doubt. Sometimes food aid comes after a month or two. Wheat and lentils, oil and soap, not much else," he added. Hadiya Abul Qassim Mohammed, who fled her village in Tawila, near al-Fashir because of intensified attacks by pro-government militias nearly a year ago, agreed. "It used to be good. But they have reduced lentil and sugar rations," she said. "Conditions are tough, but we are trying to easen them bit by bit," Abu Bakir Ahmed Mohammed, who runs a bakery in the camp, added. "The wheat and soy oil they bring us here are uneatable and have caused diarrhea for all the children and elderly people," he claimed. Humanitarian agencies concede that funding shortfalls, which recently led to a cut in the food pipeline, forced them to reduce rations and say that although the situation has improved, they still cannot provide for all the needs of the displaced. In order to make ends meet, many displaced seek menial jobs in and around al-Fashir and barter their food rations for indigenous food and other products that humanitarian agencies are not able to provide them. Sudan is under heightened U.S.-led pressure to accept the U.N. force, which Washington says is essential to stop the violence that has killed more than 200,00 people and forced millions to flee their homes since it flared in 2003. Khartoum rejects the U.N. resolution as an attempt to restore colonial rule, but has welcomed the world body's logistical and financial support to the ill-equipped 7,000-strong African Union force, which has failed to stop the violence. In its humanitarian overview for September, the U.N. said that civilian populations and aid workers were caught between splinter rebel factions on the one hand and armed militias and bandits on the other, especially in North Darfur. Twelve aid workers have been killed in Darfur since May when one of three negotiating rebel factions, the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) led by Minni Arcua Minnawi, signed a peace deal with the Sudanese government, according to the U.N. report. The rebels took up arms in 2003 to demand a greater share of power for Darfur, a vast region in northern Sudan. Other rebel groups, including a faction of the SLM and the Justice and Equality Movement, said the deal was inadequate

ITN Source | October 16, 2006

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