DATE=3/31/2000
TYPE=NEWS FEATURE
TITLE=SUDAN / DISPLACED CAMPS
NUMBER=5-46061
BYLINE=DALE GAVLAK
DATELINE=KHARTOUM
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: War-ravaged southern Sudan is a long way from
the country's capital, Khartoum. But thousands of
southern Sudanese -- displaced by civil war in the
South -- are living in desert camps dotting the
outskirts of the city. Camp residents have little or
no access to life's basic necessities and say they
want nothing more than to return to their villages in
the south where they used to farm and tend cattle.
But that cannot happen until the fighting stops.
Dale Gavlak filed this report after visiting the
displaced camps.
TEXT:
/// SUDANESE WOMEN, CHILDREN SINGING - FADE UNDER ///
There is not much to sing about in the Jabarona
camp. Money, food, and sanitation are scarce,
electricity is non-existent, and residents are forced
to make the long, arduous trek across the hot,
desolate desert to collect water from a tap or buy the
precious liquid from boys on donkey-driven carts.
The United Nations says 17 years of civil war have
forced about two-million southerners to head north in
search of shelter.
/// OPT /// The U-S State Department Human Rights
Report says there are four-million internally
displaced people in a country of about 27-million.
Amnesty International estimates even more -- four-
million-500-thousand. /// END OPT ///
The majority of women and children living in the camps
are Christians. They say their faith may be the only
thing they have left.
Camp dwellers, like Celcia Karkoo from Juba, dress in
bright designs of yellow, turquoise, and red,
providing the only relief from the stark landscape of
rows of one-room makeshift mud-brick huts.
/// KARKOO ACT - IN ARABIC - FADE UNDER ///
Karkoo says if it was not for the war, the people
would never accept living in such a terrible, dusty
place. She says that people at Jabarona now battle
hunger and disease because there is not enough food
or medicine to go around. She says Sudan's government
provides no help.
Indeed, the Sudanese government has left it to the
United Nations and private, non-governmental
organizations, such as CARE, to help make Jabarona and
three other official camps function for the past 10
years. The private aid groups -- or N-G-O's -- have
built latrines and provided water and primary health
care to camp dwellers.
A CARE spokesman, Jamal Mohamed, expresses frustration
with the uncertainty the government has created by
calling the camps "temporary," saying the camps could
be relocated at any time.
/// MOHAMED ACT ///
All N-G-Os, all the international community is
working on the emergency. No one can move to
rehabilitation or any kind of development
activity because still the future of the camp is
unknown.
/// END ACT ///
Even the name Jabarona is a constant reminder of the
southerners' displacement. The Arabic word means "we
are forced to stay."
A clergyman, Peter Toma, says he tries to help the
camp women with small income generating projects
because many are forced to compete for the few jobs
available in northern households. There, they may
work for Arabs as washers or maids. Mr. Toma says
others resort to brewing traditional "moonshine"
alcohol or to prostitution to earn some money to buy
food.
/// TOMA ACT ///
There is a very big problem. Many people are
dying from hunger now in this camp -- people who
live three to five days without food. They
leave all to children to go into the market, but
that situation leads more than one woman to brew
alcohol to serve (help pay for the needs of) the
children, another woman becomes a prostitute to
serve her family.
/// END ACT ///
/// OPT /// Amnesty International says that more than
80 percent of the women jailed in Omdurman prison,
outside of Khartoum, are there for brewing traditional
moonshine known as marissa. Although Islamic law does
not apply to southern Sudan, it does apply to the
north and to displaced people living there. It
prohibits distilling and drinking alcohol. Most of
the women find they cannot pay the penalty to get
out of jail and are forced to have their toddlers
(young children) live with them in prison. /// END
OPT ///
In other cases, it is the children, mainly young boys,
who go to the markets to beg, steal, or perform small
tasks to get food and money.
/// OPT /// That was the life Ibrahim Santina lived
for many years before the 17-year-old settled down in
a program for street boys.
/// OPT - SANTINA ACT - IN ARABIC - FADE UNDER ///
/// OPT /// Santina says that because there was no
school, food or clothes in the camp, there was nothing
to keep him there. So, he and his brothers decided to
go to the market. /// END OPT ///
A worker with the Omdurman Evangelical Church program
to help children get off the streets says there are
anywhere from 30-thousand to 60-thousand street boys
in the Khartoum area. The worker says the boys make
their way to places where they can earn money. Market
people feed them with food left over at the end of the
day. The boys also beg from foreigners or wealthy
Sudanese.
/// OPT /// The church worker says a large number of
boys become addicted to glue, petrol, and corn wine
while living on the streets. They tend to join gangs
and some become prostitutes. /// END OPT ///
Three church programs in Khartoum provide a safe
shelter for the boys and help to reunite them with
their families, if that is possible.
/// CHOPPING SOUNDS - FADE UNDER ///
Thirteen-year-old Biar Hamdoon helps other boys chop
up vegetables for their lunchtime meal at the shelter.
Hamdoon says he has no one to return home to, but he
is happy that he has a new family among the 50 other
boys and workers providing parental guidance at the
shelter. He spoke through a translator.
/// HAMDOON TRANSLATOR ACT ///
I find the shelter is very good and there is
education. It's good place, it is better than
the street.
/// END ACT ///
The shelter also may be better than the camps because
the camps provide no educational opportunities.
Amnesty International called the Sudanese government's
neglect of displaced southerners a form of structural
violence.
/// REST OPT ///
Amnesty representative Annette Weber was in Khartoum
recently visiting the displaced camps.
/// WEBER ACT ///
People feel they might suffer at the moment.
But if there is no way for their children to
even see a brighter future, then they even feel
this is a programmatic idea to keep southern
Sudanese down.
/// END ACT ///
In the early 1990's, Sudan's government shut down
schools run by private aid groups and churches in the
camps. It said the children should attend government
schools, although none existed nearby. The government
set up institutes that taught the Koran, giving
children, whether they were Muslim or not, an Islamic
education. But government statistics show that fewer
than 10 percent of displaced children attend school.
(Signed)
NEB/DG/JWH/JO
31-Mar-2000 13:21 PM EDT (31-Mar-2000 1821 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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