Special Report on war-related displacement from Raga

The enduring phenomenon of internal displacement is one of the most evident and acute effects of the civil war in Sudan, which has been raging since 1983. Displacement has resulted from drought and floods as well as violent conflict, but the war has greatly complicated the efforts of humanitarian agencies, including those of the UN, to help an estimated four million-plus internally displaced persons (IDPs) countrywide - even given that the first responsibility for assisting IDPs lies with national authorities. IDPs are particularly concentrated in the Khartoum area, where there were about 1.8 million in November 2000, according to the Global IDP Database www.idpproject.org. That figure is believed to have increased since, given the effects of drought and war in 2001, according to humanitarian sources. Between July 1999 and 2001, significant additional population displacement had taken place in Bahr al-Ghazal and Eastern Equatoria states as a result of conflict, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan reported to the UN General Assembly in October last. Estimates of the number of displaced in those two years were in excess of 100,000, far greater than that of reported spontaneous returns - estimated at 25,000. Meeting the needs of both the displaced and host populations in acute and longer-term situations is one of three key themes the UN has said it will be concentrating on in Sudan in 2002, according to its consolidated inter-agency appeal for the year. The serious and repeated displacement of civilians in and around Raga, in western Bahr al-Ghazal, southern Sudan, last year highlights the particular problem of war-related displacement for aid agencies - compounded by severe localised insecurity, inadequate access, flight bans, difficult terrain, geographically dispersed IDP populations and inadequate information. SPLA seizes control of Raga In June, more than 30,000 IDPs fled northwards from Raga County after the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) seized the town from government forces. Many of them lived and slept in the open air with little food or shelter as they made the march north, and sometimes thereafter, until aid agencies put arrangements in place to provide food, shelter and medical attention. The UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan wrote to the Ministry of International Cooperation in June, highlighting the danger of banditry and armed robbery along the route, and calling on the government to provide the IDPs with protection - although the local authorities in Southern Darfur said few such incidences affected the displaced. The government blamed the rebel SPLA for creating the Raga IDP crisis through its military offensive and obstruction of flight paths to western Bahr al-Ghazal. The SPLA has been fighting a war against successive northern governments since 1983 to gain self-determination and secular, democratic government for southern Sudan. The Raga IDPs originally fled in two main directions: one group took a northerly route through Timsahah, from where some pressed on to Al-Ferdows, while others went on to Ed Daein (Al-Duwaym); thousands more took a more westerly route, then swinging north, through Radom and on to Buram. Umm Therona IDP camp, 3km west of Ed Daein, was still hosting over 7,000 IDPs, according to humanitarian sources. Another 2,952 IDPs continued to shelter at Al-Ferdows, 75 km south of Ed Daein, they said. At Radom, 115 km west of Ed Daein, there were still over 2,500 displaced people in early January, with a high proportion of women compared to other IDP camps in the region; another 2,800 or so of those who had moved farther north remained in the IDP camp at Buram, 130 km southwest of Ed Daein, sources told IRIN. In addition to these IDPs in camps, there were also perhaps another 13,000 scattered Raga IDPs in the vicinity, outside the camps, according to an aid worker in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. The overall IDP population of Southern Darfur is now reported to be just over 49,000.

©  IRIN IDPs frequently flee conflict situations with only the possessions they can carry

After the initial displacement in June, over 5,000 IDPs were forced to move out of Timsahah, 144 km north of Raga, where they had initially sought safety, when the Sudanese government declared it a military operations area. The condition of the displaced in Timsahah was poor, and aid agencies' efforts to help them were hampered by the government's declaration of Timsahah as a military area and humanitarian flight bans, as well as the geographic difficulty of the area, flooding and impassable roads, relief officials told IRIN. The IDPs were also endangered by intensified aerial bombing by government forces in Bahr al-Ghazal (including Raga, Malwal Kon and Mangar Angui), they said. Government recaptures Raga The situation changed again when the government recaptured Raga and key surrounding towns, including Mangayath, Sopo, Deim Zubeir (Daym Zubayr), Yabulu and Boro, in October in an offensive which led to another rush of tens of thousands of IDPs. In October, the World Food Programme (WFP) expressed "grave concern" after two days of heavy bombing on the village of Mangayath, just southeast of Raga, "directly into the area where WFP teams were in the process of distributing relief food to some 20,000 civilians" displaced by the Raga fighting. UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Kenzo Oshima subsequently deplored in the strongest terms those military attacks on civilians who were gathering in one location to receive humanitarian assistance from the UN. "It is indefensible for any government or rebel movement to carry out military acts whose victims will most probably be civilians and relief workers," he added. From Mangayath, many of the IDPs fled to Awoda, Wau County, to the southeast, where the WFP estimated there were some 16,000 Raga IDPs by mid-November. Awoda was too insecure to allow WFP ready access in October and November as a result of government troop movements along the road between Raga and the Khartoum-Wau railway line, but the agency managed a rapid assessment on 21 November. WFP staff subsequently managed to get food relief to some 20,000 beneficiaries, including 10,000 newly arrived IDPs (joining 6,000 who had previously fled Raga) in a "hit-and-run intervention", it said. Some movement northeast to Aweil Almost 5,000 people displaced from Raga were also among 7,600 IDPs currently living in misery in Aweil West and Aweil North counties in northern Bahr al-Ghazal, the Sudan Catholic Information Office (SCIO) reported on 7 January, citing church and aid sources. The other IDPs referred to were part of a growing number of returnees from abduction by pro-government murahilin militias in the north, it said. The arrival of the IDPs in Aweil North and West had compounded an already parlous humanitarian situation in these parts of northern Bahr al-Ghazal, according to SCIO. Since the government regained control of Raga and surrounding towns, IDPs had headed north to makeshift camps in Marial Bai, Chelkou, Nyamlell, Makuei and Akwem in northern Bahr al-Ghazal, it said. There were about 1,400 IDPs in Marial Bai and 900-plus in Chelkou (Aweil West), as well as 1,200-plus in Gok Machar and about 1,400 in Marol Deng Geng (Aweil North), the report stated. The Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Association (SRRA) - humanitarian wing of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army - has appealed for agricultural kits, cooking utensils, sleeping and shelter materials, clothing and medicine as well as food, it added. A perilous journey south to Tambura

©  IRIN When the Raga IDPs reached Ed Daein, they sheltered outside a local school. They were later relocated to a camp some 3km away

Thousands of the displaced from Awoda later continued southwards across difficult forested ground (described by one humanitarian source as a "no-man's-land") towards Tambura, on the border with the Central African Republic, while perhaps 2,000 remained in Awoda as of late December, according to aid officials. The IDPs who remained in were not considered to be in particularly bad shape at that time, they said. Access was difficult by both air and road to those who made the difficult, four-week 300-km walk south to Tambura County (centred on Tambura town, 5.36 N 27.28 E), in Western Equatoria, southwestern Sudan, and little assistance reached the IDPs for much of their journey, humanitarian sources told IRIN. The group mainly comprised women, children and elderly men, and there was also a surprising number of blind people due to the prevalence of river blindness in Raga County, they added. WFP dropped a limited amount of food but faced flight-clearance problems in attempting to put in any more, and the Irish nongovernmental organisation (NGO) GOAL managed to drop some 15 mt of food, 1,100 mosquito nets, tools and medicines supplied by USAID and Medecins Sans Frontieres-France to some 5,000 IDPs in mid-November. This GOAL intervention at Wilsary, about two-thirds of the way, helped many of the IDPs (initially estimated to be about 8,000) to get to Tambura County, where they could get additional assistance from aid agencies on the ground, according to humanitarian sources. Estimates of the number of IDPs in Tambura County now range between 9,000 and 15,000, though the latter figure may be overstated (at least partly as a result of double registration) and the numbers involved needed to be clarified in a joint-agency assessment, according to the nongovernmental organisations MEDAIR and CARE International. The IDPs were being encouraged to make their way from Tambura and from the bush north of Tambura County to Mabia (or Mabaya), some 15 km southeast of Tambura town on the road to Mpoi (Mupoi), from the initial registration point at Namutina, northwest of Tambura, relief officials said. Some were already being organically absorbed into the community, they added.

©  IRIN Young and old, women and children were among the IDPs who fled Raga in June 2001

Some 15,000 IDPs (most of whom are agriculturalists and few of whom are expected to return to Raga soon, if ever) were eventually expected to be resettled in an open, sparsely populated agricultural area at Mabia, according to an official from CARE. The IDPs, from perhaps nine different clans, were almost exclusively agriculturalists, and this should ease their settling in this area of agricultural surplus, he said. Basic IDP kits had been distributed and the displaced populations would need seeds and tools to get back into production; there would also be certain food needs, at least until the next harvest was due about July, but, otherwise, the prospects were good for the IDPs' return to independent living, he added. And some returns to Raga... Apart from the fresh displacement of civilians, Khartoum's recapture of Raga in October had led to some of those outside Ed Daein - but not those in the IDP camps - starting to return to Raga in recent weeks, according to government reports cited by aid workers. A representative committee of the "camp IDPs" in Ed Daein had decided that the displaced would not return until some social infrastructure had been put in place and they got assurances about safety, according to UN sources. IDPs in Ed Daein told IRIN in July that they would not return to Raga and its vicinity until the situation was safe; some alleged that the SPLA had committed abuses when it was fighting for and took control of Raga, and that they would not return while it was in rebel hands. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated at the time that it would be at least six months before consideration could be given to the IDPs returning to Raga County. An assessment by humanitarian agencies of the security situation and humanitarian needs in Raga is now pending, after a recent request by the government's HAC, according to UN officials. Relief agencies highlight insecurity More generally, continuing insecurity and intensified bombing by the government were "precluding or limiting access to the various local markets and other food sources in parts of Bahr al-Ghazal", and especially among IDPs, the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS Net) reported in December. It was "highly likely" that the government dry-season offensive would be intense, as it sought to capture strategic locations in Bahr al-Ghazal and Upper Nile, while the opposition might also to capture - or recapture - new areas, according to FEWS Net. With no indications of insecurity abating, the likelihood was high of more population displacements, increased vulnerability to food security, disease and deteriorating livelihoods in 2002, it said. Population displacement, limited mobility and reduced or precluded access to food sources meant that "personal insecurity remains one of the major determinants of food insecurity in southern Sudan", FEWS Net reported. While the secondary effects of war - such as malnutrition, displacement itself and disease outbreaks - were often documented as an essential feature of programme planning, aid agencies knew less about the primary impact of war on civilians, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) noted on Friday 11 January. This primary impact included deaths, violence, abductions and "disappearances" perpetrated against civilians, including women and children, it said. Bahr al-Ghazal had been severely affected by famine in recent years, but "this should not obscure the dramatic effect of violence in this war-torn region", MSF added.