Chairman of the Irish Red Cross, David Andrews calls support for the growing humanitarian crisis in Sudan.
THE SCALE of the worsening humanitarian disaster in Sudan is still hard for most people to grasp.
The EU and UN institutions were slow to move in Darfur and the Sudanese are right not to accept western troops and if there are troops to be sent in they should be from the African Union.
It would be my intention, in September to visit the area, to speak with my former colleague, Asmael Mustapha. I met with Mr Mustapha in Khartoum and in the United Nations, in his capacity as Foreign Minister, on a number of occasions, more particularly in my successful pursuit of a seat for Ireland on the United Nations Security Council.
How many times have we heard of people being uprooted from their homes, being forced to flee across borders, dying of hunger and disease, waiting for international aid to come to their rescue?
The figures don’t convey the full horror of mothers watching their children wilting away and dying from something as simple as diarrhoea, of families losing their homes, their livestock and their relatives. Getting across the message is difficult in the context of a tense international situation, involving political and diplomatic leaders worldwide and an apparent deadlock over who is responsible for this latest humanitarian disaster in Africa and how it can be resolved.
A million people are now homeless – some 200,000 of these having made their way to refugee camps across Sudan’s border with Chad – and 10,000 people have died, according to the latest figures.
Our job in the Red Cross and the Red Crescent Movement worldwide is to get the aid to people like little Mubarrak Timan who at three years of age faces severe malnourishment after suffering diarrhoea for four days at the Oure Cassoni refugee camp in Chad. And to Hadija Yusuf Ishak, who has two children in hospital in Iriba camp and broke down as she recalls that they were “so thin they could hardly move”.
When we look at figures, we must not forget the faces of the people, children, parents, farmers, traders, it is so easy to hear about a “humanitarian disaster” and not appreciate the individual horror and sadness that this means.
To date the Irish Red Cross has raised in excess of Euro 225,000 in my appeal launched a few weeks ago.But the International Committee of the Red Cross says that the growing need in Darfur, means that their operation there, is now their largest operation worldwide.
The Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement need just under Euro 60 million for our two partner international organisations working on this disaster. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) needs just over Euro 50 million to run operations within Sudan, while the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies (IFRC) needs Euro 10 million to deal with the refugee crisis in Chad.
Within Sudan, the ICRC which specialises in working in areas of conflict, has despatched a convoy of 27 trucks and light vehicles to Darfur, carrying over 100 tonnes of food and medical supplies to the people who remain in the region, but whose homes have been destroyed or abandoned in the conflict.
The Sudanese Red Crescent Society are working with the ICRC to distribute some of these supplies along the 2,000 km of difficult terrain through which it is travelling. Together they plan to work with local authorities to ensure that the civilian population will be protected in accordance with International Humanitarian Law as well as meeting acute needs.
Specifically, this involves:
• Providing water and sanitation material for half a million people
• Shelter, clothes and household materials to 300,000 people
• Supporting 16 hospitals and health centres
• Providing food to 100,000 people for up to six months
• Re-uniting separated children and parents through its specialised Tracing Service
In Chad, media reports indicate a remarkable level of hospitality shown by the people there to the tens of thousands of refugees who arrive weekly with nothing but hunger, and possibly bearing disease. Despite having little – certainly by comparison with ourselves – the people of Chad have been willing to share their food and shelter with these refugees.
But they cannot do it alone and the cumulative strength of the national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies from around the world is supporting the Chadian people through their own local Chad Red Cross.
Since last December, the number of people pouring across the border into Chad, seeking refuge from the fighting in Darfur, has doubled. This upsurge in demand has been met with the provision of tented housing and basic medical and food supplies.
New challenges, however, now face the Red Cross in Chad with the onset of the rainy season this summer and the assessment that the conflict in Darfur does not show any immediate signs of ending, meaning that more and more people will continue to need help.
Even if the political and diplomatic impasse is resolved, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies (IFRC) believes that the “situation in Darfur, Sudan will not be resolved in the short term: the humanitarian needs in both eastern Chad and western Sudan will remain serious through the greater part of 2005. It is also clear that the situation in Chad is quite urgent”.
Local IFRC co-ordinator Roger Aubé fears that the focus on the very desperate situation in Sudan will mean that those refugees who have been lucky enough to get to Chad, and their already over-stretched hosts, the people of Chad, could be forgotten by the outside world.
“Darfur, where a major humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding, is attracting media attention and donors’ money, and rightly so, But we must not forget that many people forced from their homes in Darfur have ended up in Chad. Their humanitarian needs must not be forgotten”.
Through the IFRC, Red Cross and Red Crescent societies like the Irish Red Cross are funding the entire management of one of the many camps that have been hastily set-up to accommodate the refugees, at Tréjine, and are providing transport and logistical support to the Chad Red Cross to service the other camps.
We are also paying for the vitally needed telecommunications system between the emergency relief base at Abéché and the Chadian capital, N’Djamena, and we’re establishing a “food pipeline” with food stocks readily available, should supplies be at risk.
Your support is critical at this stage if disease and hunger are to be prevented from claiming the lives of these people. As usual, it is always the children who will die first as they are most at risk from malnourishment, pathetically-poor sanitation services and inadequate housing.
David Andrews.
Chairman,
Irish Red Cross.