The displaced of Darfur are hard pressed to find space for their dead, or enough water for Muslims’ ritual washing of the body.
Three or four people die every day in Camp Hessa Hissa, most of malaria or waterborne diseases such as typhoid, Jason Azevedo, an International Rescue Committee worker in the camp, said on Thursday.
Graves are scattered among the stick-and-plastic tents of the living in a camp that houses an estimated 23 000 people who have fled their homes because of violence many blame on their government.
”Death is everywhere here,” said Omar Abdullah, a 43-year-old tribal chief living in the camp. ”The general feeling is very gloomy. Not only do the people have to put up with the misery of leaving their homes and lives behind, but also they are faced with death every day.”
Earlier this week, the United Nations World Health Organisation (WHO) said at least 6 000 and as many as 10 000 people are dying from disease and violence every month in camps like this one across Darfur.
The WHO said its survey results also confirmed an estimated total death toll of 50 000 in Darfur since the start of the conflict 19 months ago, when rebels with their base among the region’s ethnic African farmers rose up, accusing the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum of neglect and discrimination.
The government is accused of trying to put down the rebellion by backing ethnic Arab herdsmen who long have competed with villagers over Darfur’s scarce resources. The escalating violence has forced thousands of ethnic Africans from their homes and been described by the United States as genocide.
The Sudanese government is under increasing pressure to do more to reverse what the UN has called the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. The international community, though, is divided on how to proceed.
At the UN, the US faced opposition from China, Russia and other Security Council members to its latest draft resolution threatening oil sanctions against Sudan if the government doesn’t quickly rein in the Arab militia known as the Janjaweed.
On Thursday, the European Parliament called for UN sanctions and an international arms embargo against Sudan, saying atrocities being committed in Darfur are ”tantamount to genocide”.
In doing so, the European Parliament became the first in the European Union family to agree with Washington’s genocide designation. EU governments have so far refrained from that characterisation, which many believe require strong international action.
Camp Hessa Hissa has for months been home to people who fled villages in a radius of about 100km in this corner of west Darfur. Camp residents try to give their loved ones proper funerals, scrambling to find enough water to wash the bodies and using the same plastic bags and sticks they use for their makeshift homes to erect the traditional shelters where mourners accept condolences.
Residents shake their heads over the state of graves littered with animal and human waste.
”With the living conditions here, it is very hard to honour our dead with a proper grave,” said Hussein Adam Jumaa (40).
Some graves bear small piles of stones. Others are unmarked but for lines of stones in the dust surrounding groups of plots.
The WHO study found that displaced people in north and west Darfur are dying at between three and six times the expected rate.
The WHO and the Sudanese Health Ministry were unable to complete a study of settlements in South Darfur, the region’s other state, due to fighting and dangerous travel conditions.
The WHO found most of the deaths were linked to disease in the crowded and filthy camps. Injury and violence were the cause of about 15% of deaths, the WHO said.
In Camp Hessa Hissa, Azevedo confirmed disease and dirt are the main enemies.
”The sanitary conditions are very poor. We need more toilets,” he said.
He called the mortality rate acceptable given the conditions, but acknowledged: ”We are very close to a disaster.”
Toilets are no more than holes in the ground, some dug right beside the graves. Flies swarm everywhere, to the point that few people even bother to brush them away any more. Azevedo’s agency and Médécins sans Frontières (MSF) are treating the camp’s underground water supply with chlorine to try to control disease.
”People die continuously here,” said Idris Ismail, an MSF worker in the camp. ”Sometimes it’s because of malaria and sometimes we don’t even know the reason.” — Sapa-AP