Darfur: Sleeping Tight in Safe Haven
FEATURE STORY: Lisa Henry/ACT-Caritas
PUBLISHED: August 20, 2009
DARFUR (ACT) -- Derieg camp in Darfur was, and is, Fiza’s safe haven. She has been living there since she fled with her family from the Janjaweed militia 5 years ago. The noise and clutter of the 22,000 homeless here is nothing compared to the fear of attack, rape or death. Here she can earn money as a tailor, drink tea in the afternoon with her friends at the women’s community center and sleep safe.
Fiza Ahmad Ibrahim Mohammed sits with her baby Omnia Ahmad Sidig in her lap, alternating between bouncing the sweating baby girl and letting her suckle on a slim flap of a breast. Fiza’s smile quietly lights up her face as she talks about the 10 month training course run by SudanAid, a partner of ACT International. She is about to finish.
Fiza, the Tailor
Fiza will be a tailor, able to earn some money or at the least able to repair clothes for herself, her 5 kids and her husband, for free. At 28 she is a proud woman. And why shouldn’t she be?
The Janjaweed Horror
5 years ago Fiza fled with her family from the Janjaweed: young men who came on horseback, by camel, and on foot to kill her and her family. They all escaped by night but her younger brother was killed. The Janjaweed held his corpse hostage. For three days the family tried to get the body back. They wanted to bury him properly. Finally, they got his body and buried him, while on the run from the killers. The horror of that night lurks behind Fiza’s smile.
Safe Haven
In the Derieg camp Fiza can send her kids to a primary school for girls. The school is solidly built in cement blocks painted deep red. A fence surrounds the school, with the girls entering through a front gate. The sign proclaiming support from SudanAid is clearly lettered and painted to last through sand storms and the harsh rays of the relentless sun. The school is also a safe haven.
The Return
But how long can she go on living as an internally displaced person, far from her home village and own farmland?
There is nothing Fiza would rather do than return home. But she won’t return home at any cost. She won’t pay the price of subjecting her family to the possibility of violent attacks by armed men on camel back, or a future without school and income.
Fiza asks me quite directly if the government can control the Janjaweed. But my answer and any answer at this time is inadequate and unconvincing. There is no evidence that the Sudanese military or the UN forces, UNAMID, can control the armed raiders.
They have ruled the Darfur countryside with impunity since 2004 and they seem to be able to continue. So I leave Fiza who is appreciative of the help she has received. Her tailoring business should soon take off, her girls will stick in school and she will make do in the crowded conditions of the Dereig camp. For now she is sleeping safe.
(Lisa Henry is the humanitarian response director for DanChurchAid.)
A quarter million people in Darfur are assisted everyday by ACT International. The operations are lead by Norwegian Church Aid in cooperation with two national organizations and supported by the ACT and Caritas networks.
