Story # 1
Gadija, like 1.2 million other people in Darfur, was forced to flee for her life. The terror she has lived through is etched into the lines of her face. Meet the brave woman who featured in Norwegian Church Aid’s Darfur campaign film spot.
The situation in Darfur has been called the worst humanitarian disaster of our time. In Otash, the faces of the people behind the statistics show clear distress. Gadija and Abdall Karim’s village was attacked at five o’clock one morning. First came helicopters, then shots were fired and bombs dropped. And then the Janjaweed arrived. Mounted on horses and camels. The couple lost four family members. They ran for their lives, carrying their baby Bakhat, and sought shelter in the woods. They hid there for seven days. Then they walked to Nyala, the capital of southern Darfur.
”We live like animals,” says Abdall Karim. He walks over to the shelter he has built for his family. Gadija sits on the ground and tries to comfort Bakhat. He cries in that particular way that children suffering from malnutrition do. A sound that aid workers hear regularly in Darfur and accross the border – in Chad, where 200,000 inhabitants have sought refuge.
Turned upside down
Gadija finally manages to soothe her child, but the peace does not last long. Abdall Karim sits down, and it is as if the world outside has ceased to exist; there is no space for anything other than the child’s cries and the terror in the eyes of his parents when they tell of the morning their life was turned upside down.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates that around 1.2 million people have been internally displaced in Darfur. It is expected that this figure will rise to at least 2 million before the end of October 2005. All are the survivors of a spiral of violence that has so far cost the lives of up to 50,000 people.
A woman tells of her baby who was shot aged only eight months old. She herself survived the amputation of both of her arms and breasts. Not everyone here has experienced such levels of violence – but all tell of attacks on villages, of children that were burned alive, of the mass rape of young girls, of kidnappings and mutilations. The psychological damage may take generations to heal.
Posessions lost
“Oul lives have been destroyed,” says Abdall Karim. In Otash 5000 families, or around 20,000 people, have sought refuge. They live in temporary shelters, constructed of grass and bamboo sticks. Many are recent arrivals. All possessions have been either stolen or left behind in the village.
”Look, my son lies dying and I do not have the money to take him to hospital. I walked with him in my arms for two hours, but when we arrived at the (state-run) hospital we were refused admittance,” says Abdall.
Together with Gadija, he tries to pass the time. They talk about the way their life used to be. Of their 120 sheep and goats they kept back home in their village. “The attackers took everything. It was only when we hid in the woods that Bakhat fell ill,” explains Gadija.
Counting their losses
She knows all too well that two children were buried in Otash today. The old and the very young are the first to die in conditions like these. “How many more will we lose?” ask the people of Otash.
”Please tell the world about how things are here. We cannot go home – if we do, we will be killed. But what kind of life is this?” asks the married couple.
Some hours later, the sky opens once more; the thunder, lightning and rain is merciless. In Otash it is impossible to protect oneself against the forces of nature this afternoon. The desert floor washes away with the rain. Bakhat seeks the warmth of his mother’s body. Together they wait for the sun’s rays to warm them again.
Moutasium and Asha: tears in Darfur
Story # 2
Two year-old Motassium cries out in pain. In his sickbed in Nyala, the child is fighting for his life. Women and children are those hit hardest by the tragedy of Darfur.
UN statistics estimate that around 62 per cent of the conflict’s victims are now receiving food aid. The mothers at the state-run hospital in Nyala had first to escape their burning villages. And then, in the camps for internally displaced persons, they spent months fighting for their lives. The camps in Kalma, Belil, and Mershing house mainly women and children. There are over 320,000 internally displaced persons registered in the camps around Nyala and in southern Darfur. In total, the UN estimates 1.2 million people have been internally displaced in Darfur.
Women we speak to say that they arrived on foot, together with their children and the oldest villagers. The smallest and oldest used up the last of the strength they had to escape. Living in a camp for many months has meant that Moutasium can no longer stand on his own. His shoulder blades are sharp and prominent; the skin on his arms lies in folds.
“He can’t even pick up his food,” says his mother Fathma, distressed.
One of the lucky ones
And still: Moutasium is one of the lucky ones. He is receiving treatment and there is hope that he will survive. But only very few are able to travel to the state-run hospital to receive longer-term care, and aid agencies are working hard to improve the health services that are on offer. Hospital staff explain that the malnourished children come from the camps around Nyala. We also meet several people with Hepatitis E – one of the illnesses that are spreading in some of the camps. Of those who fall ill, around 80 per cent die. The hospital management talks of a state of epidemic.
”I try to feed Moutasium regularly each day, but he has not improved yet, explains Fathma. She rocks her child carefully. His crying stops, and she attempts to give her son a little water.
Most of the children in this ward are too weak to even respond to their surroundings, but some have slowly but surely fought their way back to life and smile gently. The mothers’ distress hangs like a thick fog above the blue room. There can be no worse situation than to be a mother and have no food for ones child. TO watch these small bodies slowly wither away. Aid workers also report that some children are in such a state of shock that they cannot receive food at all.
Cries and whimpers
Back in Otash, we hear the same cries and whimpers echo through the camp. The camp’s residents walk with us from hut to hut. They want to show what life is really like, they say. 76 children have been buried in the desert sands over the last three months.
Asha Hasaballah says that she is ill, that her whole body aches. “Life was never meant to be this way, not for an old person like me,” she says.
The old woman dries a tear. Asha hopes that younger generations will one day be able to return to the good life they once lived in their village. That their children’s future will be lived out on the land of their forefathers, and not in a camp for the internally displaced.
Both of these stories + pictures/captions are:
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Moutasium is one of the lucky ones. He is receiving treatment and there is hope that he will survive. But only very few are able to travel to the state-run hospital to receive longer-term care (Photo: Hege Opseth/NCA).
Asha Hasaballah says that she is ill, that her whole body aches. “Life was never meant to be this way, not for an old person like me,” she says (Photo: Hege Opseth/NCA).
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