Darfur: Keeping Hope for the Future Alive

From the Wednesday, September 12, 2007, Toronto Star, Comments section, page AA6:

KEEPING HOPE ALIVE IN DARFUR

Pablo Recalde

It's not difficult to picture the misery caused by war. You probably see it every day on the news: thousands of people crammed together in makeshift camps, waiting under the beating sun for help from the international community.

I live in Darfur, and that's an image I know well. The town of El Geneina, from where I run the UN World Food Program's operation in West Darfur, is swollen with "internally displaced people" (IDP) who have lost family, their homes, their livestock, their livelihoods.

But there's another thing I see every day that rarely makes it into the media: I see children smiling. I see people producing, creating, selling and buying things inside the camps - keeping a semblance of normality within the conflict. It doesn't match the popular image of the victims of violence, but it's the face of Darfur that I remember when I go to bed at night. And it is what I see when I wake up.

Thanks to the efforts of thousands of dedicated humanitarian workers - many of them so young - children all over Darfur are alive. They're fed. Many are going to school, and hopefully, when peace comes to Darfur, they will ready to help rebuild their communities.

Since 2004, when the international community flooded into Darfur, 12,000 humanitarian workers have been on the ground there, providing food, shelter, health care, water and sanitation, agricultural tools and seeds and other necessities of life.

[The UN World Food Program is the] largest humanitarian agency working in Darfur. Our main job is to feed people. And against all odds we get the job done.

In July, 3.1 million people received food rations from WFP, distributed with the assistance of the many charities and non-governmental organizations working in Darfur. This is the biggest WFP operation in the world, with a budget of $684 million this year. It wouldn't be possible without the generosity of the citizens of Canada - the third largest donor to WFP Sudan, with a contribution of $22 million (U.S.) in 2007.

I'm not writing to tell you the crisis is over. Far from it. Violence has continued - in fact, it has increased. We truck food across the length of Sudan - 3,000 kilometres from the Red Sea coast to the little town where I live. Once the food is out in the field, our staff and their colleagues from other agencies often travel by helicopter to the distribution sites because the roads are just too dangerous.

And unfortunately, every month, there are pockets of Darfur where we are unable to reach people, and malnutrition can quickly set in. In July, 60,000 went without a ration because we couldn't get to them. Often, it is many more.

The people of Darfur are frustrated. They're demoralized by a crisis that seems to have no end. They are angry to see their children born and growing up in camps, rather than at home, in peaceful villages. Still, they keep on struggling to regain their dignity. Life has always been hard in the tough climate of Darfur, but surviving in war is much worse.

Now, more than ever, it is the support of average citizen[s] and their governments that is making the difference between survival and complete disaster. Your support is literally making the difference between life and death. It is helping us to hold the line.

People often ask me whether I think the international efforts will work. Put simply: they must. But regardless of how or when, my colleagues and I will be here, doing the job of holding the line.

No one would wish for their children to be born and to grow up inside the confines of an IDP camp.

But it's important to realize that until a solution to the crisis is found, the humanitarian community is working in Darfur amid challenges and severe risks, to help keep the hope of a future alive.