Diary from Sudan – Part 3

InterAction President & CEO Sam Worthington is visiting humanitarian workers in Sudan.
Follow along as he posts diary entries and shares photos from along his trip.

February 25, 2008 – El Fasher, North Darfur

The day starts early, as 46 humanitarians, from the UN and NGOs, board a WFP/UN-AMIS
Bombardier plane. For two hours, we cruise West at 24,000 feet over a deserted landscape, and
hundreds of miles pass quickly as passengers sleep. There are no signs of life as we fly over the void
between Khartoum and Darfur. As we start to descend, dried up stream beds, and the ever changing
shades of reddish brown landscape, is finally cut by tracks and then one long straight dirt road. A
cluster of round huts, each with its own walled compound, in groups of fifty or more appear, to create
a village. Each village is surrounded by rectangles of different shapes. Man’s agricultural mark on the
land. We fly over village after village, all surrounded by tracks, some near a road, others perched in
the middle of nowhere.

People live here because there is water underground, and with water comes life. They have lived
here for thousands of years. But no more. Every village is empty, many burned, as every family was
swept away by the tragedy that is Darfur. This is a desolate landscape the size of Texas. A place I’ve
heard referred to as a war zone, or the wild-west. It is home to over 2 million displaced people. Now it
is very real.

Everything takes time. And time is on the side of the government bureaucracy that regulates
humanitarian access within Sudan. To get to Darfur you need a visa from a Sudanese embassy,
once in Khartoum you need to get four copies of a HAC authorization each with your picture, copies
of your passport and Sudan visa, and, three days in advance, a scarce seat on a UN flight. The
Humanitarian Aid Commission, commonly known as the HAC, manages all movements of the
humanitarian community. After our flight, within the first hour on the ground in El Fasher, we are off to
the HAC office to register. Without proper registration I will be kicked out. I become an employee of
my host NGO and everything is fine. Three copies of my HAC authorization are sent to checkpoints
throughout the town. I now have authorization to spend time here and explore the Zam Zem IDP
camp.

In El Fasher we’ll live in a compound with guards. Thankfully near the center of town, away from the
occasional gun fights in the market and the GOS (Government of Sudan) garrison near the airport.
Our white land cruiser with its tall radio antennae, NGO markings and large flag, cannot stray more
than a kilometer from town. The “no guns aboard” decal and humanitarian markings no longer
provide any protection. Land cruisers, with a mounted heavy machine gun, are the ubiquitous
weapon of this desert war. They are robbed, and drivers often left on the road far rom town, or at
times to be killed. NGOs tell their drivers that if they are held up at gunpoint, to simply had over their
keys and the vehicle. The GOS accuses NGOs of handing over the keys of vehicles to the rebels.

To get to most IDP camps, especially ones that are far from the three major towns in Darfur (El
Fasher, Nyala, and Geneina), you need to travel by helicopter. If the camp is close, a miniature
rented, mini van, or horse drawn cart have replaced the white NGO land cruiser. Tomorrow we’ll
travel south, 15 km to the Zam Zem camp in a dilapidated mini bus. Like all NGOs we do not want to
be associated with any armed escort. The Tawila IDP camp 30 km to the west is no longer safely
reached by land.

El Fasher has a climate at this time of the year that is perfect, a dry Mediterranean heat that is
certainly cooler than Spain in the summer. The town has a new paved main street and there are a
few new buildings and a mosque going up. Little else seems to have changed in years. The airport,
built by the British when planes first flew over the Sahara, hasn’t changed much at all. It looks new at
least when compared to the low brick walled homes that line the dusty dirt streets that run throughout
the town. El Fasher is a place of contrasts. Like big white, six winged, insects, 18 enormous AMIS
and UN helicopters sit on the sand around the airport. Alone and separate, an armed camouflaged
GOS helicopter lies waiting. Driving to our compound we pass AMIS armored personnel carriers,
horse drawn carts with drivers holding a whip and sitting on two 80 gallon barrels of water, soldiers
standing on a land cruiser with a mounted heavy machine gun, goats who claim the road, donkeys
some with riders or pulling carts, some simply lost in the traffic of small taxis.

Time is not on the side of the NGO humanitarian worker. Every movement of NGO expatriate staff is
regulated and limited by government controls. Their space to work, the “humanitarian space” that
enables a group of people to care for others within a war zone, is getting smaller. Humanitarian
space requires some degree of security, not protection from the barrel of a gun, but from the warring
sides and a knowledge of the land and respect from its people. With rebel groups and government
proxy groups splintered, making ever shifting alliances across the land, groups of armed bandits
roam the countryside praying on any convoy. Time is not on the side of the IDPs in this war that has
no peace in sight. In the mean time, hopefully, the new UNAMID forces, if and when, they are
properly armed and deployed, will bring some semblance of security. One has to remain hopeful.