Starting a new life in Krinding Two

Women and men emerged from the belly of a hulking orange lorry and spilled into the open field, their backs weighed down by firewood and lumpy bundles. Another truck screeched to a halt in the large field and scores more scrambled to the ground. After squatting for months on the cramped Al-Mustaqbal school grounds in West Darfur's state capital, Al Geneina, they scanned the fresh territory to find a place to claim as their own. They were the latest arrivals among some 2,500 people trying to start a new life in a new camp. In recent months, tensions and tempers had flared at a handful of school grounds throughout Al Geneina town, where thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) had gathered, escaping attacks by Janjawid militias earlier this year. His rusty crutches resting in his lap, Sheik Al-Dain watched the others line up to receive crucial supplies that would help them survive in Krinding Two, a new IDP camp established on the outskirts of Geneina to accommodate relocated families. Along with the other camps circling the town, Krinding Two falls within the boundaries of a new government-designated 'safe area', a result of a 30-day United Nations Plan of Action detailing measures to be taken by the government to improve security and humanitarian conditions in Darfur, which expired in late August. IDPs traumatised Although more police have been deployed to beef up security in a handful of these havens in Darfur, IDPs like Al-Dain are still too traumatised to return home. "The men on camels and horses arrived and started spraying everyone with bullets at random," Al-Dain told IRIN, lifting his "djellibiah" to reveal "a crater" in his leg that was still raw seven months after being shot. "They burned our homes as we were still in our village. I cannot go home to farm my fields. It is still too unsafe for us," he said. It was on 8 February, the 40-year-old Al-Dain claims, that countless armed men entered his village, stole all the livestock in sight, burned their homes to the ground and killed 67 men. He said that 12 of those killed were from his own family. As he and his female relatives fled toward the closest main road, a day's walk from his village of Yoro, he was shot in the leg. The women carried him the remainder of the way until they were able to flag down a truck which drove them to the main hospital in Al Geneina town. Here, Al-Dain was nursed for three months. After leaving the hospital, he joined his family at the Al-Mustaqbal school grounds. The Al-Mustaqbal IDPs have now been registered to receive food distributions and other crucial non-food items. Women queued patiently to receive jerry cans, soap and blankets provided by the UN Joint Logistics Centre, while Islamic Relief Worldwide handed out indigenous building materials for the traditional conical "rakuba" huts, which are crafted to keep out the rain that crashes from the sky during the evenings. The new school session had began in early August and town parents and teachers had begun growing impatient. To the government, the solution was to send the IDPs back to their villages. But the IDPs refused, too afraid of what and who they would run into back on their farming land. Besides, they had nothing left to return to. Humanitarian intervention It was at this point that the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) proposed to relocate the school dwellers. The government accepted and allocated public land on which the IDPs were now resettling.

IDPs loading their property onto trucks at Al-Mustaqbal school, West Darfur

OCHA's Protection Officer in West Darfur, Michael Heller Chu, along with a leading Sheik of the Massalit tribe, visited the Al-Mustaqbal grounds days before the move to inform the community of the upcoming events. A school headteacher joined the large group of men conversing on a mat laid out under the shade of a large tree on the school grounds. She expressed her frustration over the cumbersome makeshift dwellings, made of sticks, rags and other flimsy materials that now clogged the school grounds. Many of the 'residents' had in fact been living with host families in town. But their resources were now running out and many IDPs, mainly from the Massalit tribe, chose to take part in the move to Krinding Two. The Sheik explained that they had left their bare-boned huts standing as a statement: "We are IDPs." After an intense discussion, the headteacher disappeared into a classroom and the IDPs promised to dismantle the dwellings the next day. In mid-August, the first 1,200 or so IDPs living at Zahra and Thoura schools, moved to Krinding Two. The new settlement is attached to the sprawling Krinding camp, where some 23,000 IDPs have been living since fleeing their villages. Later this month, the International Organization for Migration, and Catholic Relief Services will help some 13,000 IDPs move from Abuzar school to Ashara Buyut, or "Ten Houses", on land allocated by the government close to Krinding camp. Although the future remains uncertain for the new residents of Krinding Two, for the time being they have gained some respite amid their tragic situation. "I don't like being displaced and living away from my village, but I have no choice," Al-Dain said. "I am a man of pride and want to tend to my crops. I look forward to the day when I can live with dignity again, but now it is still to dangerous to go home," he said.