A Photo Journal from Darfur
There are over 240,000 Sudanese refugees already in Chad (Tchad), and a nearly equal number of Chadians who have been displaced by the chaos along the border. The influx pushes the number of people in eastern Chad dependent on an already overstretched aid operation toward half a million. In February of this year, at least another 10,000 to 15,000 more flooded in as Chinese-sponsored Sudanese militias did another round of ethnic cleansing. And while the crisis in Darfur is the most visible, it is not the only refugee crisis in the Sudan. Juba is the other and it gets scant attention because of the remoteness of the area. Here is a recent report from late May 2008 in the Sudan Tribune a London-based group that tracks events in the Sudan.
An article in today’s Washington Post:
Five years after the Darfur conflict began, the nature of violence across this vast desert region has changed dramatically, from a mostly one-sided government campaign against civilians to a complex free-for-all that is jeopardizing an effective relief mission to more than 2.5 million displaced and vulnerable people.
Though there are some swaths of calm in Darfur, fighting among rebels and among Arab tribes has uprooted more than 70,000 people this year, compared with about 60,000 displaced by government attacks on villages, according to U.N. figures.Although powerful countries such as China, which is heavily invested in Sudan’s oil, have been criticized by human rights activists for not doing more to pressure the Sudanese government to end the conflict, some analysts say the breakdown of command lines on all sides has made the situation increasingly impervious to outside influence.
Meanwhile, the proliferation of banditry has become the biggest threat to humanitarian groups undertaking the largest relief effort in the world and to a nascent U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force. Their trucks and SUVs are stolen almost daily, used as fighting vehicles or sold for cash to middlemen who haul them to Chad and Libya.
The Refugee Crisis in Juba in the southern Sudan
In January 2005, the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and Khartoum’s Islamic-dominated government signed the comprehensive peace agreement. Many of the four million people displaced by Africa’s longest-running conflict started returning home. And while the world watches as best it can the crisis in Darfur, the tenuous peace in Juba has fallen apart. China smells oil and these people have to go.
International Refugee Organization
The World Refugee Survey 2008 was released on 19 June 2008. This year’s Survey offers 60 country updates and also highlights ten of the worst violators of refugees’ rights. Also in this year’s Survey are examples of people speaking out on behalf of refugees in countries from Thailand to Turkey, and detailed statistics on refugees around the world. Read it online at International Refugee Organization