|
|
|||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
News Search
|
|
August 6, 2004 Scotsman CHILDREN LOST WILL TO EAT AFTER JANJAWEED MILITIA BURNED THEM OUT OF THEIR HOMES Gethin Chamberlain THE room is dark, the only window fastened by a battered metal shutter. A thin shaft of light filters through the open doorway, illuminating the women sitting on the metal-framed beds crammed into the small space. Beside the women, lying on the dusty bedsheets, are the shapes of tiny children, their bodies unnaturally thin. The women flick at the flies that try to settle on their children. One of the girls - they are all girls - lies listlessly, hardly moving even her eyes. Another starts screaming, her mother holding her tightly, trying to soothe her so that she will stop. One in ten of the children who pass through this room die. A chart on the wall of another room in the clinic shows the state of the children being treated this week. One line is marked "Deaths." The box showing the total at the end of the row is filled by the number three. This is where the children of the refugees who have fled to Tawila are brought when they fall ill. The staff of the clinic are busy, for there are many ways the children can become ill. This room is for the children who must be helped to eat. To gain admission to this room they must be at least 30 per cent malnourished. Some have stopped eating; they have lost the will to help themselves. Mazar Abdullah Mousa was brought in a month ago by her mother, Faisa Adam Ali. Mrs Ali fans her daughter, 27 months old, with a green blanket, trying to keep the flies off her face, but the flies are persistent and not easily deterred. Mazar had developed a fever and diarrhoea; she had no desire to eat, but still managed to vomit from time to time. Until five months ago, they lived in the village of Hilla Jawama in North Darfur. The Janjaweed, the Arab militia in the pay of the Sudanese government, turned up one day and shot seven of the men who lived there, and one woman. They stole the people's animals and their property and set the village on fire. When they departed, nothing was left of the family's home. It took the family two hours on a donkey to reach the town of Tawila, north of El Fashir. Mazar's father came with them, along with their other three children. They took two of the children to El Fashir; the other is with them in Tawila. The family lives in a makeshift shelter on the edge of the town, along with the hundreds of others who have poured in from the surrounding area. No-one wants to live in the villages outside the town anymore. There are too many Janja weed around, and they are afraid that they will be attacked. They say that they will not go back to their homes until they can feel safe, and they do not feel safe yet. The Sudanese government has told them that they should go back, that there is nothing to be afraid of, but they do not believe what they are told. Last week a government delegation arrived in El Fashir to try to persuade those still pouring in to join the 40,000 who have made their homes in the refugee camp at Abu Shouk to turn around and to go home. A large crowd gathered to listen to what they had to say, and then people began to pick up stones. Young, old, it made no difference; the delegation was driven away under a hail of stones. The clinic where Mrs Ali has taken Mazar is full of women with their children. In one room with a tin roof and a concrete floor, a doctor examines a young boy, also suffering from fever and diarrhoea. He lies still while the doctor examines him. He does not resist the prodding and poking, or even register that he feels it. Flies rest on his face. Behind a cloth screen, someone is dressing or undressing, the next case or the last. Outside dozens of women shelter with their children under another expanse of tin sheeting, waiting to be seen by the medical assistants who will assess their cases. In another room, children are being vaccinated. Only the most severe cases make it to the therapeutic feeding centre. Mrs Ali, beautiful in her blue dress, her skin a deep black, her eyes dark and sad, knows that Mazar is very sick. She did not want to leave the village, but there was nothing left for them there. It is because they left their home that Mazar is sick, she says. "She has been like this for a month," she says. "After I left the village we ate some kinds of foods, seeds, but before that we ate well. Before we left the child was very good but afterwards she started to be ill. "We have been here for five months because there was no security in Hilla. We left because of the war. Before I came here I was anxious but now I feel better. "It is better to stay here because it is better than the village. In the village there is no security. There is no village to go back to. How can I return to the skeleton of our land? I have no home, nothing." On Tuesday in Kebbekabiya, 100 miles north of El Fashir, the Janjaweed were back. The area is a stronghold of the militia, but local government officials had asked them not to bring their weapons into the town. When they turned up unarmed in the market place, they had animals with them. Some of the people claimed that they recognised the animals as their own, animals that had been looted by the Janjaweed on raids. They surrounded the militia and took back some of the animals. That evening, it began to rain. It was a little while after the evening prayers had ended, about 9, when the Janjaweed returned. They were angry about what had happened earlier on, and they were looking for revenge. This time they had not left their weapons behind. They shot the locks off the shops and took from them what they wanted. The next day five of them sauntered through the town, wearing the uniforms the Sudanese government gave them, their weapons slung over their shoulders, ammunition pouches round their waists. It was a show of strength; they had their animals with them again, but this time no-one tried to approach them. Aid workers travelling through Darfur say it is the same everywhere they go. No-one is left in the villages; everywhere is deserted. Only the nomads remain, herding their animals across the empty lands. From the south come reports of fighting between the Rizogat and the Janjaweed and government troops. The talk is of fresh attacks on villages, although the Rizogat have fought back hard. But there are glimmers of hope. African Union soldiers have visited the Kowra mountains to talk to the many people who have taken refuge there. They urged people to come down from the hills, telling them they would not be harmed. Ismail El Rasheed, an aid worker with the UK-based Save the Children charity, said that the day afterwards, when he drove along a road running by the hills, three people were there selling oranges. The next day there were 50 people. There is some hope, he said. But still he does not believe people will go back to their homes this year.
|
|
||||
|
................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
|||||||
