Sudan – ICRC Bulletin No. 52 / 2007
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Latest report on ICRC activities in the field
Despite the volatility of the security situation in Darfur and the comparative inaccessibility of civilians living in remote rural areas, the ICRC stepped up its presence in the field to assist people in advance of the onset of heavy rains in July.
Even as it attended to the task of providing urgent relief, the ICRC continued to remind all those involved in the conflict of their obligations to respect civilian lives and property.
During dialogue with all sides to the current conflict, the ICRC repeatedly stressed the necessity for humanitarian workers to have access to all those in need, even in remote locations.
Stepping up presence in Tawila Lying 60 km west of El Fasher, the area of Tawila, in North Darfur, has been the scene of recurrent attacks and clashes.
Approximately 40,000 people who fled the city of Tawila and its surrounding villages live in difficult conditions in three camps for displaced persons: Argo, Dali and Rwanda.
Owing to the prevailing insecurity, most of the humanitarian organizations that had been providing much-needed basic assistance to people living in the camps have left the area.
The Sudanese Red Crescent Society is still distributing food provided by the World Food Programme, but none of the other basic needs of the camps’ residents are being met.
Sanitation in the camps, with the rainy reason imminent, is a major concern.
The ICRC has therefore taken it upon itself to meet short-term medical and sanitation needs in the camps and to monitor respect for the lives and property of displaced persons.
It is currently: establishing health posts and oral rehydration centressupplying medical equipment and drugs in support of the health
staff
building 500 latrines
encouraging camp residents to set up hygiene and water committees, to raise the standard of hygiene and improve maintenance of the water system making access to water points safer and providing technical expertise and materials for repairing hand pumps
giving training in first aid to fighters in the area and promoting the rules
and principles of international humanitarian law (IHL) among them
monitoring allegations of violations of IHL
restoring contact between separated family members through the
exchange of Red Cross messages
The ICRC hopes that other humanitarian organizations will soon be able to resume their activities in Tawila.
Reaching rural communities before the rains The ICRC is completing a large humanitarian operation to deliver aid to rural areas before the rainy season reaches its peak in July.
It has distributed approximately 830 tonnes of aid to villages in North, South and West Darfur.
This was made possible by the dedication and hard work of over a hundred expatriate and local staff.
More than 8,000 vulnerable households received essential items.
One of the ICRC’s main priorities is to deliver seed and tools to those communities whose income is derived mainly from farming.
This will improve food security and prevent further displacement of people to camps.
A total of 6,500 families received staple seed, cash-crop seed, seed-protection rations and farming tools in advance of the planting season which gets under way in July.
"The ICRC feels that it is essential to assist people living in remote rural areas and to help them preserve their livelihood,” said Martin Bissig, the ICRC’s economic security coordinator.
“People have to be able to resume cultivation in order to harvest by the end of the year.
This means that they must prepare the land before the rains.
When the rainy season begins, they will be able to cultivate millet, sorghum, ground-nuts, tomatoes, watermelons and onions." The ICRC helps vulnerable pastoralist communities by providing assistance that enables them to preserve their traditional means of livelihood.
A livestock vaccination campaign is in progress in Dar Al Salam in North Darfur and a training course for community animal-health workers took place in Al Daein in South Darfur.
The latter was conducted in close collaboration with the faculty of veterinary science of the University of Nyala.
In the Gereida camp for displaced persons in South Darfur, where the ICRC sees to the basic food and health needs of over 100,000 people, 25,000 households received tarpaulins to protect their homes during the rainy season.
In addition, over 2,000 families in rural areas in Gereida, who had suffered during clashes, or who had recently returned to their villages, received essential household items.
Ensuring access to safe water in Darfur The end of the dry season, when the level of the water table is at its lowest, is the best time of the year to deepen existing hand-dug wells.
The ICRC has upgraded 46 wells in Darfur since the beginning of the year.
It has also repaired hand pumps in remote villages and rehabilitated water yards for nomadic communities, ensuring that those living in rural areas will have a constant supply of water throughout the year, even at the peak of the dry season.
During the rainy season, the ICRC will coordinate training courses in operating, maintaining and repairing or rehabilitating hand pumps and water yards.
In all, the ICRC is providing safe water to over 400,000 people in Darfur.
The ICRC is also speeding up work on sanitation in the Gereida camp for displaced persons.
Since the departure of other humanitarian organizations in December 2006, the ICRC has also been responsible for delivering safe water to all those living in the camp.
Latrines are being constructed, maintained, and disinfected.
Solid waste is collected from throughout the camp, and in the town of Gereida, and disposed of efficiently by volunteers from the Sudanese Red Crescent.
A clean environment, proper sanitation and hygiene awareness are all crucial in preventing the outbreak of waterborne diseases, especially during the rainy season.
Providing medical care The start of the rainy season brings an increased incidence of waterborne diseases like diarrhoea, amoebiasis and cholera, which threaten primarily children, pregnant women and the elderly.
Cases of malaria, to which the same groups of people are vulnerable, are also more frequent, as are respiratory infections.
Illness makes children lose weight, and an increase in cases of malnutrition is expected.
ICRC-supported primary-health-care clinics and health staff are prepared for increasing their level of medical attention in Darfur.
The ICRC's field surgical team has been deployed three times in recent weeks: in Kutrum (Jebel Marra) in West Darfur, in Al Sharif (near Kabkabiya) in North Darfur, and in Gereida in South Darfur.
They operated on 16 patients in what were sometimes very dangerous conditions.
The team, which is based in Nyala in South Darfur, consists of one surgeon, one anaesthetist, one nurse and one post-operative nurse.
They provide emergency treatment to wounded fighters or to injured civilians when no other medical facilities or adequately trained surgeons are available.
Every week, at the therapeutic and supplementary feeding centre in Gereida that it operates jointly with the British Red Cross and the Australian Red Cross, the ICRC treats over 700 malnourished children under five years old.
The children are treated for worms and receive, in addition to necessary medical care, vitamin supplements and a special food mix that provides the equivalent of about 1,500 calories a day.
Strengthening respect for IHL The ICRC gave two intensive one-week training courses on IHL in Khartoum.
The first course was attended by military lawyers from the Military Justice Department of the Sudanese armed forces.
Members of the Sudanese national intelligence and security service attended the second course.
Besides providing specialized training aimed at ensuring respect for IHL during the conduct of hostilities, the ICRC regularly conducts information sessions with all those who bear arms, and also with community leaders, to raise awareness and create acceptance for its humanitarian role and to promote respect for basic humanitarian principles.
In southern Sudan, the ICRC gave a course on human rights and humanitarian principles to 13 training officers of the Central Training and Development Unit of the Southern Sudan Police Service.
The course, held at police headquarters in Juba, dealt with incorporating principles of humanity into policing, when conducting arrests, using force or maintaining public order.
Also in Juba, on 21 June, a round table discussion on IHL was organized by the ICRC and the legislative assembly of the government of southern Sudan.
The event provided an opportunity for open discussions with members of the legislative assembly.
The debates were focused on IHL and on legal protection for vulnerable groups.
Participants also discussed domestic obligations to implement and promote respect for IHL and ways to take IHL into account when drafting new laws.
For further information, please contact:
Cecilia Goin, ICRC Khartoum, tel: +249 912 13 77 64
Anna Schaaf, ICRC Geneva, tel: +41 79 217 32 17
See also ICRC media contacts
This article on www.icrc.org
Despite the volatility of the security situation in Darfur and the comparative inaccessibility of civilians living in remote rural areas, the ICRC stepped up its presence in the field to assist people in advance of the onset of heavy rains in July.
Even as it attended to the task of providing urgent relief, the ICRC continued to remind all those involved in the conflict of their obligations to respect civilian lives and property.
During dialogue with all sides to the current conflict, the ICRC repeatedly stressed the necessity for humanitarian workers to have access to all those in need, even in remote locations.
Stepping up presence in Tawila Lying 60 km west of El Fasher, the area of Tawila, in North Darfur, has been the scene of recurrent attacks and clashes.
Approximately 40,000 people who fled the city of Tawila and its surrounding villages live in difficult conditions in three camps for displaced persons: Argo, Dali and Rwanda.
Owing to the prevailing insecurity, most of the humanitarian organizations that had been providing much-needed basic assistance to people living in the camps have left the area.
The Sudanese Red Crescent Society is still distributing food provided by the World Food Programme, but none of the other basic needs of the camps’ residents are being met.
Sanitation in the camps, with the rainy reason imminent, is a major concern.
The ICRC has therefore taken it upon itself to meet short-term medical and sanitation needs in the camps and to monitor respect for the lives and property of displaced persons.
It is currently: establishing health posts and oral rehydration centres
Reaching rural communities before the rains The ICRC is completing a large humanitarian operation to deliver aid to rural areas before the rainy season reaches its peak in July.
It has distributed approximately 830 tonnes of aid to villages in North, South and West Darfur.
This was made possible by the dedication and hard work of over a hundred expatriate and local staff.
More than 8,000 vulnerable households received essential items.
One of the ICRC’s main priorities is to deliver seed and tools to those communities whose income is derived mainly from farming.
This will improve food security and prevent further displacement of people to camps.
A total of 6,500 families received staple seed, cash-crop seed, seed-protection rations and farming tools in advance of the planting season which gets under way in July.
"The ICRC feels that it is essential to assist people living in remote rural areas and to help them preserve their livelihood,” said Martin Bissig, the ICRC’s economic security coordinator.
“People have to be able to resume cultivation in order to harvest by the end of the year.
This means that they must prepare the land before the rains.
When the rainy season begins, they will be able to cultivate millet, sorghum, ground-nuts, tomatoes, watermelons and onions." The ICRC helps vulnerable pastoralist communities by providing assistance that enables them to preserve their traditional means of livelihood.
A livestock vaccination campaign is in progress in Dar Al Salam in North Darfur and a training course for community animal-health workers took place in Al Daein in South Darfur.
The latter was conducted in close collaboration with the faculty of veterinary science of the University of Nyala.
In the Gereida camp for displaced persons in South Darfur, where the ICRC sees to the basic food and health needs of over 100,000 people, 25,000 households received tarpaulins to protect their homes during the rainy season.
In addition, over 2,000 families in rural areas in Gereida, who had suffered during clashes, or who had recently returned to their villages, received essential household items.
Ensuring access to safe water in Darfur The end of the dry season, when the level of the water table is at its lowest, is the best time of the year to deepen existing hand-dug wells.
The ICRC has upgraded 46 wells in Darfur since the beginning of the year.
It has also repaired hand pumps in remote villages and rehabilitated water yards for nomadic communities, ensuring that those living in rural areas will have a constant supply of water throughout the year, even at the peak of the dry season.
During the rainy season, the ICRC will coordinate training courses in operating, maintaining and repairing or rehabilitating hand pumps and water yards.
In all, the ICRC is providing safe water to over 400,000 people in Darfur.
The ICRC is also speeding up work on sanitation in the Gereida camp for displaced persons.
Since the departure of other humanitarian organizations in December 2006, the ICRC has also been responsible for delivering safe water to all those living in the camp.
Latrines are being constructed, maintained, and disinfected.
Solid waste is collected from throughout the camp, and in the town of Gereida, and disposed of efficiently by volunteers from the Sudanese Red Crescent.
A clean environment, proper sanitation and hygiene awareness are all crucial in preventing the outbreak of waterborne diseases, especially during the rainy season.
Providing medical care The start of the rainy season brings an increased incidence of waterborne diseases like diarrhoea, amoebiasis and cholera, which threaten primarily children, pregnant women and the elderly.
Cases of malaria, to which the same groups of people are vulnerable, are also more frequent, as are respiratory infections.
Illness makes children lose weight, and an increase in cases of malnutrition is expected.
ICRC-supported primary-health-care clinics and health staff are prepared for increasing their level of medical attention in Darfur.
The ICRC's field surgical team has been deployed three times in recent weeks: in Kutrum (Jebel Marra) in West Darfur, in Al Sharif (near Kabkabiya) in North Darfur, and in Gereida in South Darfur.
They operated on 16 patients in what were sometimes very dangerous conditions.
The team, which is based in Nyala in South Darfur, consists of one surgeon, one anaesthetist, one nurse and one post-operative nurse.
They provide emergency treatment to wounded fighters or to injured civilians when no other medical facilities or adequately trained surgeons are available.
Every week, at the therapeutic and supplementary feeding centre in Gereida that it operates jointly with the British Red Cross and the Australian Red Cross, the ICRC treats over 700 malnourished children under five years old.
The children are treated for worms and receive, in addition to necessary medical care, vitamin supplements and a special food mix that provides the equivalent of about 1,500 calories a day.
Strengthening respect for IHL The ICRC gave two intensive one-week training courses on IHL in Khartoum.
The first course was attended by military lawyers from the Military Justice Department of the Sudanese armed forces.
Members of the Sudanese national intelligence and security service attended the second course.
Besides providing specialized training aimed at ensuring respect for IHL during the conduct of hostilities, the ICRC regularly conducts information sessions with all those who bear arms, and also with community leaders, to raise awareness and create acceptance for its humanitarian role and to promote respect for basic humanitarian principles.
In southern Sudan, the ICRC gave a course on human rights and humanitarian principles to 13 training officers of the Central Training and Development Unit of the Southern Sudan Police Service.
The course, held at police headquarters in Juba, dealt with incorporating principles of humanity into policing, when conducting arrests, using force or maintaining public order.
Also in Juba, on 21 June, a round table discussion on IHL was organized by the ICRC and the legislative assembly of the government of southern Sudan.
The event provided an opportunity for open discussions with members of the legislative assembly.
The debates were focused on IHL and on legal protection for vulnerable groups.
Participants also discussed domestic obligations to implement and promote respect for IHL and ways to take IHL into account when drafting new laws.
For further information, please contact:
Cecilia Goin, ICRC Khartoum, tel: +249 912 13 77 64
Anna Schaaf, ICRC Geneva, tel: +41 79 217 32 17
See also ICRC media contacts
This article on www.icrc.org
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