No Food Today
In the Darfur region of Sudan, both rebels and the government are engaged in new fighting, reprisals, and attacks that make the distribution of food, medical supplies and other necessities for life impossible as nearly 2,000,000 civilians (mostly women and children) have left their homes in search of refuge.
NYT: Nor has the deployment of African Union troops stopped the violence. The roughly 1,000 soldiers who are here now, a third of the numbers expected, are authorized to do little more than monitor cease-fire violations.Practically all roads out of El Fasher, the North Darfur state capital, are off limits to aid workers for security reasons. As a result, more than 1,500 metric tons of food, which had been scheduled for delivery by the World Food Program this week to displaced people squeezed into towns just west of here, sits in a cavernous warehouse.
“Now, we are grounded here in Fasher,” a frustrated Manuel Aranda da Silva, the United Nations regional aid coordinator, said here on Thursday. “We can’t move.”
Mobile clinics that once traveled to rebel-held villages north and south of here are now staying off the road. Plastic tarps that were to be transported to a teeming camp for the displaced people on the southern fringes of El Fasher were turned back by the military on Thursday. Mosquito nets cannot be delivered to a malaria-prone area because of fighting and banditry on a vital stretch of road. Polio vaccinations have not been delivered to a section of West Darfur, because a new rebel group has emerged there and has refused to guarantee the safety of aid workers.
The 21-month-old conflict in Darfur has already tested the resilience of Darfuris. Since March alone, according to the United Nations, 70,000 people have died of hunger and disease. Roughly 1.6 million people have been left homeless.
Bahria Mohammed Ahmed, a woman in her 30’s, heard the rattle of gunfire early Monday morning while preparing breakfast. By the time she had gathered up her five children and fled on foot, government warplanes were circling overhead.
While on the run, she recalled bending down to adjust the baby tied to her back. When she looked up, two of her children were not at her side. She cried out their names, but ultimately in vain. She arrived in Abu Shouk on Wednesday without them, and this evening she scanned the horizon as the sun went down. Another batch of Tawila people were expected to be trekking across the desert to Abu Shouk.
