UN: No Darfur disaster
2010-03-03 19:04
Khartoum - One year after 13 international aid agencies were expelled from Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, thousands of people survive on assistance distributed by Sudanese groups as a humanitarian catastrophe was averted.
On 4 March 2009, President Omar al-Beshir became the first acting head of state to face an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.
Sudan responded by immediately expelling 13 foreign non-governmental organisations accused of spying for the court and closing down three local aid organisations.
The move against relief organisations deprived the UN of key partners in Darfur aid distribution and threatened the lives of an estimated one million people.
The Darfur conflict, which according to UN figures has claimed about 300 000 lives and displaced 2.7 million people since it erupted in 2003, has also left more than half of the region's eight million inhabitants aid-dependent.
Food, water, healthcare
"We were very, very worried," said UN humanitarian co-ordinator for Darfur Toby Lanzer.
"We thought, now we don't have partners to distribute food to 1.1 million people, we don't have UN partners to carry on healthcare programmes for 1.6 million people or to maintain access to clean drinking water for over a million others."
UN agencies hired Sudanese employees from the expelled NGOs, set up partnerships with local aid groups and gave more responsibility to those still in the region, as well as boosting ties with the Khartoum government to confront the expected the humanitarian crisis.
"The government of Sudan stepped in and really took on a lot of the work that has been carried out by the organisations that were expelled from Sudan," Lanzer said.
"Paradoxically, the expulsion forced us to work closer together (with Sudan) and that is one of the main reasons why there was no catastrophe."
Kidnappings
In Kalma, a politically sensitive refugee camp where 10 of the 13 expelled NGOs worked, the situation remains tense, according to one local leader.
"The situation is difficult, we have no doctors or medicine and the food rations are low," said Sheikh Ali.
When he expelled the foreign aid agencies a year ago, Beshir pledged to "Sudanise" the humanitarian operations in Darfur, triggering fears of a new wave of expulsions and the forced closure of the camps of displaced people.
But Abdel Baqi Gilani, state minister for humanitarian affairs, has insisted the government was not hostile to international humanitarian workers.
"The Sudanisation of the humanitarian work does not mean we want to expel the international NGOs (still active) from the country," he told AFP. "To me it simply means that we want to build up the capacity of our national NGOs, so that we can depend on ourself in the long run."
The arrest warrant issued by the ICC for Sudan's president has meanwhile coincided with a wave of kidnappings of foreign aid workers, limiting humanitarian operations in sensitive areas of Darfur.
"It is the kidnappings that have affected our operations, not the expulsion of NGOs," said Saleh Dabbakeh, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Khartoum.
The ICRC says it has restricted its movements and reduced its field presence in Darfur and eastern Chad since last year's kidnappings.
- SAPA