SCENES FROM A CRISIS: TOP: In Kalma camp in Darfur. PICTURE: © 2004 CARE/ Evelyn Hockstein MIDDLE: Najiwah, Darfur. A severely malnourished 18-month-old girl sits beside her mother after being sponged down to cool her fever. PICTURE: © 2004 CARE/ Evelyn Hockstein    BOTTOM: Iridimi, eastern Chad. More than 15,000 Sudanese refugees are now calling the Iridimi Transit Camp home. PICTURE: © 2004 CARE/ John Estey

3rd August, 2004

DAVID ADAMS

A mass of humanity - somewhere around 70,000 people - huddled together in the desert; living in tiny huts which provide only the barest shelter from the burning sun and torrential rains.

Fear reigns here: fear of the outbreak of disease, fear of what the future holds. Yet it’s also fear which keeps people here and prevents them from returning to their homes: fear of being killed or raped or perhaps worse, watching their loved ones being cut down or raped before their eyes.

That’s the picture World Vision’s chief executive Tim Costello painted last week after returning from the Kalma camp in Sudan last week, a cit of small huts created on a sand-dune in the western Darfur region.

Costello broke down as he spoke of the estimated 50,000 people who have been killed in the conflict which is shattering the nation and of the women who spoke to him of the use of rape as a weapon of war.

“This is organised, it’s systematic, it’s absolutely terrifying,” he said.

Around 200,000 people are living in camps in Darfur, a border region between Chad and Sudan, with a further 1.7 million people in Sudan estimated to have left their homes. It’s been estimated that as many as two million people will need feeding in the Darfur region for the next 18 months.

The crisis was sparked last year when the Sudanese Arab Government moved to crush a rebellion by African tribes, unleashing not only their soldiers but brutal and terrifying auxiliary forces known as “Janjaweed” in an orchestrated campaign of killing, looting and rape.

Tens of thousands of people, many of them women and children, have subsequently fled their homes and been pouring into the border regions of Darfur in Sudan and eastern Chad where a series of refugee camps have been established.

Likened to the horror of Rwanda 10 years ago in which 800,000 people were slaughtered, the United Nations has described the situation as the world’s greatest humanitarian disaster.

International pressure is slowly building. There are already military observers from the African Union in Sudan monitoring a ceasefire between the Sudanese Government and the rebels and they plan to send in more troops. The West has also been considering military intervention and late last week the UN Security Council adopted a resolution threatening to introduce sanctions on Sudan in 30 days unless it stops attacks by the Janjaweed and brings those responsible to justice.

The Sudanese Government has indicated it will try to comply.

Tim Costello in Darfur recently. PICTURE: World Vision

Meanwhile the humanitarian crisis continues to escalate. The Red Cross say that lack of food, safe drinking water and basic health care remain major problems and that many people are being forced to eat wild foods, such as grass seed, fruit seed and small herbs and even grasshoppers.

Costello warned last week that with people still too scared to return home at a time when they should be planting seeds for the next harvest, a new crisis was looming. The international community, he said, would need to be prepared to stay for the long haul.

In Australia, meanwhile, the Federal Government has pledged to provide $20 million in humanitarian assistance, announcing late last month it would provide an additional $12 million as well as an initial $8 million.

While welcoming Australia’s response to the crisis, Costello said it was important Australians and others living in the west suffer compassion fatigue.

“(T)hese people’s lives - innocent people who chose not to be in this situation, who are now dangling by a thread - can be saved,” he said. “Their lives can be saved.”

Costello broke down again as he went on to add that seeing the suffering he witnessed in Sudan served as a timely reminder “that if we have a short attention span then it will literally cost up to a million lives”.

“The very mark of being human is that you don’t turn your head away,” he said.

• CARE Australia: Call 1800 020 046 or go to www.careaustralia.org.au.

• Red Cross: Call 1800 811 700, go to www.redcross.org.au or post a cheque to GPO Box 9949 in your capital city.

• World Vision Australia: Call 13 32 40 or go to www.worldvision.com.au.