Sudan aid group 'filled with spies'
2006-10-06 08:48
El Sallam Camp - Tribal leaders gathered in tense silence at this sprawling Darfur refugee camp, telling international aid workers that they would not tolerate help from a Sudanese aid group they worried was filled with government spies.
With parts of Darfur now too dangerous for Western aid groups, much of the burden was shifting to local humanitarian organisations - whose members faced suspicion or even death in lawless camps.
Clad in flowing white cotton robes and turbans, the tribal leaders gave a long list of reasons to prevent aid workers from Siha, a Sudanese non-governmental group, from coming anywhere near the camp.
A representative of the refugees, recalling that the Sudanese army had chased his people from their villages more than two years ago, asked: "How can we trust that they aren't spies for the government?"
Fighting left 2.5m people homeless
At least 80 000 refugees survived in El Sallam and the nearby camp of Abu Shouk, a cluster of huts, mud brick houses and tents that sprawled on the outskirts of the capital of North Darfur state, El Fasher.
They were among 2.5 million people made homeless by three years of fighting between the Sudanese government and rebel groups in the vast, arid Darfur region of western Sudan.
At least another 200 000 people had been killed since hostilities erupted. Pro-government militias and rebel factions continued to harass, rob and rape refugees.
But, humanitarian access was nearing an all-time low. With 13 aid workers killed in recent months, the UN's humanitarian chief had warned that international aid groups would have to pull out if security worsened.
International aid groups already had withdrawn from large sections of Darfur, and now often drove or flew in and out on spot missions to deliver medicine and equipment to local aid workers.
1 000 aid workers 'are foreigners'
That left much of the burden on Sudanese groups. But, suspicions and distrust meant that the local groups were often barred - or worse.
Three Sudanese water engineers were killed in the South Darfur camp of Zalingei in June because refugees suspected they'd come to poison their wells rather than fix them.
Of 15 000 humanitarian workers in Darfur, only 1 000 were foreigners. They said they would leave only if the fighting made it impossible for them to operate at all.
But they also were pushing for home-grown groups to take over long-term relief.
United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef), which operated the water sanitation project in Zalingei where the engineers were slain, was eager to obtain full acceptance from El Sallam's refugee leaders on Wednesday before bringing in any Sudanese workers.
Sardar Dohuki, a Unicef worker from Iraq who was handling introductions in El Sallam, said: "We don't believe in doing everything directly. It's much better over the long term to have Sudanese help other Sudanese."
- AP