DARFUR UPDATE

Field Report 1: October 2006

On the Ground with the CHRF Emergency Response Team

The following account was sent by a member of our Emergency Response Team, which has been delivering relief supplies to victims in the Darfur refugee camps. The team member's name and the details of the mission have been withheld for security reasons.  

The boy was wearing a pair of dirty shorts and a shirt torn in so many places that it barely clung to his back. Like the rest of the refugees in the camp, he was painfully thin. Unlike many, however, the flame of this small boy's hope had not yet gone out, and he burned with a child's cheerful and irrepressible enthusiasm as he followed us about. His joy was all the more shocking given his surroundings: a remote refugee camp in Darfur, Sudan, where the conditions have rightly been described as "hell on earth".

In all my travels, I have never witnessed such extreme human suffering and deprivation. At this first stop, some 2,500 people were crammed into a camp that wasn't much more than a few flimsy awnings and ropes. Many were wounded or maimed, with the terror of what they had experienced still in their eyes. Sanitation was non-existent and the hot air reeked of sickness and death. And everywhere there was hunger - hunger so deep and prolonged that it sucked all life and energy into itself. It had been over a year since the last relief team came through, and the people were gnawing on roots and dry leaves.

And in the midst of this hell hole was this small bright boy. The translator introduced him as James, an unlikely name that must have been bestowed by some relief worker - perhaps because the boy, like so many Darfuri children who find their way to the camps, either wouldn't, or couldn't, give his real name. The identities of thousands of Darfuri children have been lost in this way: by the trauma of what they have seen, and the fear of what might still come for them.

James' story is like so many others we heard: he awakened one night to the sounds of people screaming in terror outside his house. When he peered outside, he saw men on horseback slaughtering everyone in sight. James knew what this meant: the Janjaweed had come . He saw members of the neighbouring family hacked down in front of their house. He crept to the other room looking for his parents but the house was empty.

Terrified, James crawled out a window and hid himself in the bushes outside the perimeter of his small village. He saw a woman being dragged screaming from her house and raped by multiple soldiers until her screams died and her body lay still and quiet in the dirt. James ran into the darkness and didn't look back. He eventually found his way to the refugee camp and waited for his family to find him. Over a year later, James seems to accept now that they will never come. They were killed with all the others.

Later the next day, James asked me if I would be his father and take him home with me. I had to look this small earnest boy in the eye and tell him that no, I couldn't do that. Before we left he tried to renegotiate: since he couldn't come with me, then would I please stay with him? As he clung to my hand, I felt like another larger hand was squeezing my heart. I said, "If I did that, then who would take care of my wife and new baby?" James looked up at me and smiled in sad acknowledgment of this point, and then hung his head. We could both hear the sound of the plane approaching that would carry us away to our next stop. I felt as though the sorrow of this small boy would crush me.

We're home now, but I can't forget James, or the hundreds of other refugee children we met on this trip. We delivered over three tons of relief supplies into an area that hadn't received any outside help in months. I was overwhelmed by the humility and gratitude of the people as they bent their frail bodies to carry the bags of maize and other supplies we brought. There was no grabbing or fighting, as might be expected when people are starving. Rather there was an amazing communal spirit as relief was distributed as equitably as possible.

Please thank the donors who made our trip possible, and please let them know the difference their gifts made in the lives of these noble and innocent people. It's not just about the food and water we bring. It's about the hope - hope that someone cares and that they haven't been forgotten, which may mean that their suffering will eventually have an end.

I gave James my favourite shirt before I left. It hung down to his knees but he wore it proudly. It gave him hope that I might come back. To see the joy return to his face at this small gesture gave me hope too - for both of us.