Samira grasps the foil packet and squeezes out the paste inside, licking up a nutritional supplement that tastes like sweetened peanut butter.
In a landscape seemingly devoid of hope, this is a small triumph. In October, Samira weighed just more 6kg; she should weigh 11kg. Back then, the four-year-old had a poor appetite, and was suffering from diarrhoea. Now her weight has gone up to 7kg and she is eating happily again.
Good news is in short supply at Hajeleja camp in west Darfur. About 1 500 families live here amid the sand and scattered bushes, under plastic sheeting spread over shelters built from tree branches.
They are black Africans, scattered from their villages in devastating attacks by the government-backed Janjaweed militias. Most are women and children, like Samira and her grandmother Mariam Abaker, who cares for her and seven other children from her extended family.
It is safer to live without the men, who are hiding in the bush. The Janjaweed once terrorised this camp, riding through shouting: ”Where are your men? Where are your men?”
But there is one cause for relief: the disastrous famine predicted in Darfur this winter has not come to pass. There are malnourished children here, but none at death’s door.
The reasons are twofold. First, the UN and aid agencies such as Concern have provided a food lifeline. Second, the resourcefulness of the people themselves, who have gathered wild plants, managed to hide some goats and cows from the Janjaweed, and made use of secret stores of grain squirrelled away in the bush.
Concern’s work in Darfur began in May when shelter kits and supplies of household necessities were distributed to about 6 000 refugee families in camps near the state capital of west Darfur, El Geneina.
The kits included palm straw matting, and poles and ropes to build huts, as well as plastic sheeting to keep out the torrential rains of the wet season. Mosquito nets, bowls, spoons, jerry cans and cooking pots were also supplied to displaced civilians who had been stripped of everything.
In August, Concern began a nutrition programme in west Darfur, aimed primarily at identifying and treating cases of acute malnutrition. The programme has benefited more than 12 700 children in 10 camps. In three camps where food supplies have been scarcest, including Hajeleja, Concern has also carried out a blanket distribution of food to every family with under-fives.
In Hajeleja, Samira is one of seven children considered severely malnourished. She seems animated, but her body is fighting a cough which is slowing up her weight gain.
The medical assistant working in the camp for Concern suspects TB, but there are no medical facilities, either here or in the nearest town, to diagnose or treat the disease.
What aid workers can provide is food. Every week, Samira and the six other severely malnourished children are weighed and given a nutritional supplement.
One of the other children turns his face away from the sticky paste. This loss of appetite may be a sign that his liver is not working properly.
Once the sick children have been weighed and fed, their carers queue up to receive a food ration which they can take back to the tents to share with the rest of their family.
Today is a ”blanket” distribution, and hundreds of women are queueing. They are given a portion of corn-soy blend, a yellow powder mixed up with water to make a porridge.
The women stand in circles, dividing up the food along with portions of oil, sugar and bars of soap. A cheerful communal dynamic builds up in as the women pet their neighbours’ babies and push tiny shoes back on to dangling feet.
Samira and her grandmother’s home village, Khadjar Habil, was attacked by the Janjaweed last August. As villagers fled, their livestock was looted and property stolen or burned. The loss of the animals is felt keenly. ”We don’t have any animals now,” Samira’s grandmother said. ”They were all stolen. We had three cows — they’ve been taken.”
Abaker initially fled across the border to Chad, then crossed back to Sudan as the situation calmed. Samira’s mother, with a small number of other villagers, has deemed it safe enough to go back to their home village, where they have planted a millet crop in their fields. But it will be a tiny crop because it was not safe to return until months after the usual planting season, in May.
The Red Cross warned recently that only a third of the normal crop has been planted in Darfur. In most cases, seeds and tools have been looted. The people of Darfur are wise in exploiting their environment and capable of surviving on far less than a westerner. But as violence continues, it seems likely that next year’s planting season will be disrupted too.
Feeding children like Samira will be the world’s duty for many months to come. – Guardian Unlimited Â