New Janjawid attacks force more people into camps

Ask Kaltouma Yaya Ato why three years into the Darfur conflict, she has only just decided to seek refuge in Chad, and the 80-year old says not a word. She simply rolls up the folds of her skirt to reveal traces of the Janjawid. Her left leg has swollen to twice its normal size – the result of a beating the Arab militiamen inflicted on the frail old woman using wooden clubs. Her crime? To be out looking for firewood at the wrong time. Her punishment? One month later, she cannot even stand, let alone walk. Ato is one of some 1,000 refugees from Sudan's Darfur region to have turned up at the Gaga camp in eastern Chad since the beginning of the year, citing fresh Janjawid attacks. "They show no pity to anyone," she whispered. Ato made the journey from the Mornei camp for internally displaced people in Darfur to Gaga by pick-up truck, relying on the sympathy of strangers to pay her way and lift her on and off the vehicles. "I feel better here, and hopeful my life will improve. At least it's quiet, and I can't hear any gun shots," she said. For many of the new arrivals, it is the second or third time they have been forced to flee. Some have come from camps for the internally displaced or border villages in Darfur. They complain of food shortages and being attacked as they ventured out to collect firewood or graze their animals. There are others who sought shelter in villages just inside Chad but soon found that the Kalashnikov-wielding Sudanese militia paid no heed to international boundaries, staging raids across the border on horses and camels. Then there are those, like 32-year-old Halime Babour, who fall into both categories. Suckling her eight-month-old baby, Babour recalls how she lost her uncle during an attack by the Janjawid on the Sudanese village of Tandalti late last year. She and her six children fled into Chad, seeking refuge among the villagers of Biski. But, she says, the Janjawid struck again, killing two of her neighbours, burning houses and stealing cattle. Tired and hungry "We are so tired of the attacks and having to move on. It's unsettling for everyone," Babour said. "All I want now is to stay in one place, build and live, have food and be safe." Gaga has received some 1,000 new refugees since the start of the year, says camp manager Milaiti Ruben of the aid agency Africare. And he expects no let-up. "The stream will continue because insecurity reigns along the border," he told IRIN. "And the simplest way for people to protect themselves is to flee." Gaga is the newest of 12 refugee camps scattered up and down eastern Chad, and for the moment space is not a problem.

Sudanese refugees wait to be registered at Gaga camp in eastern Chad

"We're at about 7,000 people now," said Ruben. "But we have the capacity to house 30,000." Doctors at the camp's clinic are working at full stretch to treat malnutrition among the new arrivals. "We've identified 40 new cases of malnutrition today alone," said Ngaro Degoto, the clinic's supervisor. "Malnutrition levels have been rising for the last month but it's not that there are food problems in the camp, it's the new arrivals pushing the numbers up." Raids and attacks along the Sudan-Chad border are not only creating new cases for the clinic, but they are also hampering the assistance aid workers can offer. "Before, we used to send the severe cases of malnutrition to the hospital in Adre, but the insecurity has made it impossible to take them there now," Degoto explained, as hungry infants mewled in the background. "At the camp we monitor them every hour, but when we leave for the night they're on their own until the morning."