Crisis in Darfur — Outlook for Children

August 2005 Update

A food distribution line comprising of salt, cereal, oil, sugar, CSB and pulses.

Save the Children remains at work to help end the complex emergency in Sudan’s West Darfur State, where more than 1.8 million children and adults have been displaced.

In the camps and temporary settlements, we continue to help more than 300,000 children and adults every month. Many suffered or witnessed atrocities. All remain completely dependent on international relief for their survival and well-being.

Outlook for Children

The global response has so far averted a catastrophic humanitarian disaster, but conditions for children’s survival remain critical:

• Reports of malnourished children are on the rise. Such children are at greater risk of diarrhea and other water-borne diseases, which can kill young children.
• Despite a number of vaccination campaigns, about three-quarters of all children in the Sirba Camp have not been immunized against measles or tuberculosis.
• The current rainy season will continue into September. Its end will restore our access to camps on roads that are now impassable, but food supplies are very low and will remain so for at least another year, as families miss planting cycles, remaining dependent on food aid.
• Violent incidents occurred in several camps recently over the re-registration of residents for food assistance. This forced Save the Children and other aid agencies to suspend food distributions briefly before resuming and completing them.
• Sporadic fighting continues between rebels and the janjaweed militia, keeping the Darfur region dangerous for displaced children and families and humanitarian relief agencies alike.

Our Response

People start arriving from the camp to the distribution site.

Save the Children has conducted large-scale humanitarian relief and protection programs in West Darfur State continuously since March 2004. Despite insecurity and sporadic violence,
Save the Children has not withdrawn from any camp and continues to deliver essential health, nutrition, protection and other programs. Here’s a summary of our work during the past month:

Hunger Relief — We delivered 4,523 metric tons of food (cereals, legumes, oil, sugar, salt and corn-soya blend) in July to 247,336 children and adults in 24 camps. We also delivered two months’ rations to 157,430 other children and adults before the rainy season. We deliver 85 percent of the food being made available in West Darfur State by the World Food Program (WFP), and WFP has asked us to handle food distribution in more camps and villages.

Click map of West Darfur to view larger image

Therapeutic and Supplemental Feeding for Children — We operate four therapeutic feeding centers in West Darfur for malnourished children under age 5. Since the program was launched in late 2004, we have served over 1,000 children just in the month of July alone. However, the rainy season, poor water and sanitation and increased diarrhea pose serious problems. A recent assessment by Save the Children and UNICEF found that 16.8 percent of children surveyed in Geneina and 16.3 percent in the locality of Sirba were acutely malnourished. In response, we doubled admissions to our nutrition programs in these places and distributed food rations to all Sirba children under age 5.

Protection for Children — Save the Children is the only organization with structured group activities for children who have forgotten what peace and stability are like. Recreational activities at 22 centers in 11 camps (drawing, painting, traditional games, singing and sports, led by over 100 “animators” we have trained) attracted 43,165 children in July. We also trained staff in some camps to trace families for unaccompanied children; in July, we registered 15 children separated from their families. UNICEF has concluded an agreement for us to provide psycho-social support for up to 50,000 more displaced children.

People arriving at the Mornei Camp in Sudan.

Protection for Women — We opened four new women’s centers in Mornie Camp, bringing to 19 the number of centers available to displaced women. They offer programs in literacy, income generation and construction of fuel-efficient cookstoves, which reduce the time women must gather firewood in dangerous places. Women also support each other to help reduce and prevent gender-based violence, and in the center’s sanduk, a group savings system. In July, Save the Children conducted a workshop on gender-based violence for leaders of the Africa Union Civil Police who provide camp security.

Emergency Health — The rainy season made it impossible for expectant mothers from the Furbaranga Camp to travel to a hospital in Garsella for care, so Save the Children funded the rehabilitation of an obstetrics and gynecological ward near the camp. We provided equipment and medicines and are supporting two doctors there. We also refurbished reproductive health units in Twange and Krinding. Save the Children reached an agreement with the Sudanese National HIV/AIDS Program to set up voluntary HIV/AIDS counseling and testing centers in camps. Save the Children also continued to operate 16 primary health clinics in camps and near Geneina; each treats up to 100 children and adults daily.

Livelihood Projects – These help families through microcredit and other small camp-based projects, teaching them skills they can use when they return to their villages.