NEWS STORY: Darfur Region of Sudan Remains a Tinderbox

c. 2005 Religion News Service ZALENGEI, Sudan _ On a recent late afternoon, as Darfur’s intense midday heat began to ease a bit and a small office proved a welcome respite from the glaring sun, a humanitarian official mused about the seeming quiet. His warning to a group of visitors: don’t let any surface calm […]

c. 2005 Religion News Service

ZALENGEI, Sudan _ On a recent late afternoon, as Darfur’s intense midday heat began to ease a bit and a small office proved a welcome respite from the glaring sun, a humanitarian official mused about the seeming quiet.

His warning to a group of visitors: don’t let any surface calm fool you.


“This is a tinderbox,” he said, pointing to a map. “And we’re right in the middle of it. People are in great despair and they are losing hope.”

That pinched and brittle reality may set the next chapter in the sad and brutal saga of Darfur, the western Sudanese region that, prior to the South Asian tsunami of Dec. 26, 2004, was the site of what the United Nations called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Born of a variety of causes _ civil, ethnic, political and economic _ the Darfur crisis is now in something like limbo: an unresolved problem that has begun fading a bit from international concern and attention. Still, it remains a burning moral and ethical concern for religious groups straddling a wide theological spectrum, as well as humanitarian organizations and human rights activists.

One unresolved issue that continues to animate debate about the crisis is whether genocide has occurred in Darfur.

The United States has said it has; the United Nations in a recent report said it has not, though it was still highly critical of the Sudanese government, as it was of militias aligned with the government and rebel groups opposing it.

At least 70,000 _ and by some estimates, perhaps as many as five times that number _ have died in Darfur since 2003 due to war, disease or malnutrition. And at least 1.5 million Darfur residents have fled their homes and villages.

They were driven away by what human rights groups and other observers claim was a government-led campaign of violence linked with so-called “Janjaweed” militias.

The Sudanese government has repeatedly and passionately denied the charges, saying it has no control over the militias. It blames the crisis in Darfur on a guerrilla insurgency and has said recent international accusations against it are groundless and unfair.


A recent peace agreement ending two decades of war between the Islamic government based in the capital of Khartoum and the predominantly Christian and animist south has also recently overshadowed the situation in Darfur _ though the agreement has also provided a measure of hope that Darfur’s problems might be yet settled by peaceful means.

While Darfur’s humanitarian crisis may have eased a bit in the last six months, it is far from being resolved, and many are worried that the humanitarian problems may yet become worse.

Those in the displacement camps display a quiet but seething anger fueled by a potent mixture of boredom and despair, of ennui and hopelessness. These one-time farmers and villagers now endure a life of confinement inside what some Westerners compare to prison camps.

The Sudanese prefer another comparison: in informal discussions, sometimes on camp pathways, others over a cup of tea _ and nearly always in groups in which they are not always comfortable in revealing too much, including names _ they speak of being like “hens in cages.”

Recently, a group of men in one camp repeated the refrain several times as they described their lives. “We and our families are in prison here,” said one resident. Another groaned: “We don’t do anything; we sit without work and can’t go back to our land.”

The situation for women is even worse and has become an issue of international concern: by tradition, women collect firewood for cooking for their families. For those now in the camps, this means having to cross camp boundaries to find kindling. But in the process, the journey exposes women to rape and other acts of violence, reportedly by roving Janjaweed militas.


It is not easy for an outsider, particularly a male, to speak openly with women in the camps, and even Sudanese men speak modestly and elliptically about women being “beaten” or “badly hurt.”

But one Western female humanitarian worker _ who, like the Sudanese, was uncomfortable being quoted by name _ said rape remains a serious, real and constant threat to women in Darfur; many women had already been raped while fleeing their villages.

“It’s still a very serious problem,” said the humanitarian worker. “It’s a problem here on a daily basis.”

Such realities do not bode well for the coming year, observers predict.

The Sudanese government wants to initiate a program of return to the villages, but those in the camps _ however eager they are to return home _ steadfastly refuse to leave until a stronger level of security can be guaranteed.

“2005 could be a disaster,” said an official of a U.S. Catholic relief agency, noting that with farmers away from their fields, the land now stands idle and a cycle of dependency on international assistance is well under way.

If trust in government authorities is at a low ebb among those in the camps, the situation on the ground “is still very fluid,” said a U.S. government official.


War between the government and anti-government rebels continues throughout Darfur, and security and protection of the displaced remain watchwords in an uneasy and unresolved situation.

Retribution could also prove to be a potent problem in 2005: one humanitarian official said the “knives are sharpening,” _ a reference to what may prove to be one of the knottier problems in Darfur: permanent hatred between different ethnic and social groups.

If the Darfur crisis proves anything, it may be the volatility of war within borders.

(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)

“When your own people are your enemies, that’s the worst thing you can go through,” warned a nutritionist who experienced the civil war in Somalia in the early 1990s.

Do not bet on reconciliation in Darfur any time soon, said another observer, a Western journalist with long experience in Sudan.

“Maybe you can talk about reconciliation beginning in five years,” the journalist said, speaking during a visit to one of the camps. “Maybe.”


“But for now,” he added, motioning toward his neck, “the hate is up to here.”

KRE/JL END RNS

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