Expulsion of Aid Groups Raises Risks in Darfur
Relatives prayed Friday over the body of Asha Adam, an infant who died of uncontrollable
diarrhea. Levels of disease in Darfur’s camps are all but certain to rise.
NYALA, Sudan — The sign outside the clinic in Otash camp reads “8-hour service daily.”
On Friday, Haider Ismael al-Amin lay in his mother’s arms, his 10-year-old body withered
and weak from dehydration after a night of vomiting. But the door to the clinic was locked.
After 30 minutes of waiting, his family gave up.
“The white people used to come every day,” said Hawa Hamal Mohammed, a relative of the
boy. “Now the clinic is closed.”
The American aid group that operated the clinic, the International Rescue Committee, was one
of more than a dozen aid groups expelled from Darfur this month by President Omar Hassan
al-Bashir. He accused them of cooperating with the International Criminal Court in The Hague,
which had issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of war crimes in the conflict that has
consumed Darfur for years.
Since then, local health workers have been struggling, with almost no medicine, to keep the
clinic open on a limited basis. Thousands of people in this sprawling camp depend on it for
primary care. But on Friday it was closed altogether.
The expulsion of organizations that provided clean water, medical treatment, food and shelter
for millions of Sudanese in the war-racked region of Darfur has thrown the world’s largest aid
operation into disarray, putting the lives of millions of displaced people at risk.
The Sudanese government has pledged that local aid groups and government agencies will fill
the gap, and that assistance from the World Food Program and other United Nations agencies
still operating in Darfur will help avert an immediate crisis of widespread water and food
shortages.
But the enormous aid effort in Darfur, which costs more than $1 billion a year and requires
more than 10,000 workers from dozens of organizations, is already slowing, aid officials here say.
Although no one yet knows how the remaining organizations will cope with the gargantuan task
of keeping the most destitute alive, the levels of disease and misery in the vast camps where
people who fled their homes in the conflict live are all but certain to rise. Already the most
vulnerable, the oldest and youngest, are succumbing.
At the edge of Otash camp, a collection of some 30,000 people in South Darfur, the male
relatives of Asha Adam dug her tiny grave. The infant girl died after suffering from uncontrollable
diarrhea, her family said. Such illnesses have become common, as water has become scarce in
the camp and living conditions deteriorate, according to residents. The girl’s father, Ahmed Abdul
Majid, 55, said he had nine children.
In some highly politicized camps, residents are protesting the government’s actions by refusing
to accept help from organizations other than the ones that were expelled, aid workers and
government officials say. Kalma, one of the biggest and oldest camps, with about 90,000 people,
has been off limits to journalists for weeks, but Sudanese aid workers there have said that a
tense standoff is brewing.
The water pumps in the camp require fuel, and the fuel is almost gone. United Nations and
government officials have nearly 50 barrels of fuel, along with other supplies, ready to be
delivered, but the residents have refused. Four people have been reported dead in a meningitis
outbreak, but camp leaders have barred government health workers from going into the camp
to vaccinate, aid workers said.
Al-Hadi Ahmed al-Najim, the government’s humanitarian coordinator in South Darfur, said that
Kalma residents had refused all efforts for help. “Kalma is an international red card over our
government’s head,” he said in an interview. “It is to be made clear that this is an irreversible
decision. If they want facilities, we are ready to facilitate that. If they refuse, we are not going
to enter by force.”
The United Nations has tried to fill the gap left by the departure of organizations like the health
charity Doctors Without Borders, which had to abandon hospitals and clinics in several hard-hit
areas, and Oxfam Great Britain, which provided clean water and latrines to hundreds of thousands
of people in camps across the region. Without these essential services, it will be virtually impossible
to control waterborne infectious diseases, like cholera and meningitis, that often arrive with the rains,
which are likely to begin in a few weeks.
But United Nations agencies like the World Food Program and Unicef relied heavily on private aid
groups to carry out their programs, and while many aid groups remain in Darfur, the loss of some
of the biggest has made that work increasingly difficult, aid officials said.
“We may not have an immediate crisis on our hands,” said one senior aid official, speaking on the
condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of operations in Darfur. “But in a few weeks, when
the rains start and the hungry season begins, that is when the real impact of this decision will be felt.”
Feeding centers for malnourished children were already seeing hundreds of patients a week, and
those numbers normally quadruple in the lean season before the harvest. Without organizations
that run the specialized clinics that feed underweight and malnourished children with fortified
porridge, more children will surely die, aid workers in Darfur said.
The decision to expel the aid groups appears to have been made well before the International
Criminal Court announcement, and it was carried out with ruthless efficiency, aid groups said.
Government forces arrived at the offices of several charities and ordered workers to leave, and
then the forces seized valuable equipment like computers, cars and generators, according to aid
officials here.
“This was in the works for a long time,” one senior aid official involved in Darfur relief said. “They
had been waiting for a chance to strike out at these organizations.”
The Sudanese government has long suspected aid organizations of collaborating with the court by
providing evidence and helping prosecutors gather testimony from victims. But aid groups say that
they have gone out of their way to avoid even the appearance of collaboration.
At the United Nations, Sudan has faced intense pressure from Western countries to allow the aid
organizations to resume their work. But Sudanese officials are adamant that there will be no change.
“The decision of the government of Sudan is a legitimate sovereign decision which we will never
reverse, and this should not be an issue for discussion,” Mohamed Yousif Ibrahim Abdelmannan,
Sudan’s envoy to the United Nations, told the Security Council last week.
Lynsey Addario reported from Nyala, and Lydia Polgreen from Dakar, Senegal.
