Concern's aid programme to western Darfur, Sudan, is well under way as part of an international programme to help the people of this devastated region.
The three big issues that Concern is tackling are nutrition, sanitation and shelter and substantial deliveries have started.
The situation in Darfur as a whole is so serious that by the end of the year, two million people could be displaced. Already, in the view of the UN, it's the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world.
Tom Arnold, Concern's chief executive, says that its programme in western Darfur is the largest exercise it has undertaken in recent years and one of the largest ever mounted since Concern was started back in 1968.
Concern is currently helping around 330,000 people in western Darfur, a third of the number of displaced people in this part of Darfur. The displaced people have been driven out of their villages into makeshift refugee camps by nomad militia.
Western Darfur has a population of 1. 6 million, while for Darfur as a whole, it's about six million. In the whole of Darfur, 1. 2 million people are now displaced. Up to 50,000 people have been killed. In addition, about 200, 000 people are refugees in neighbouring Chad, while many more are camped along the border with Chad.
Darfur is vast, the size of France and Sudan itself is the largest country in Africa. Outside the rainy season, Darfur is dry, dusty desert. Temperatures vary considerably between day and night; during the day, they can soar to 50 degrees Centigrade.
Very recently, Concern concluded its assessment of what's needed in terms of nutrition and sanitation while the overall situation in the camps has been thoroughly assessed. Now, the delivery of supplies is getting under way in earnest.
In the camps, tens of thousands of people are surviving without food, shelter, water or sanitation. Even the well-off food supply areas in Darfur have been badly hit.
The lack of food, the absence of water and sanitation and the subsequent risk of diseases in the camps where the displaced people are now living, such as cholera, hepatitis and malaria, are at the heart of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. The most vulnerable people are children, women, the elderly and the sick.
But now, help from Concern is getting to the people who need it. Currently, says Dominic MacSorley, Concern's emergency co-ordinator in western Darfur, the organisation is flying in 250 metric tonnes of supplementary food from Ethiopia.
"It's expensive and it takes time," he says. "The airstrip in El Geneina, in western Darfur, is a dirt surface which can't take the largest planes. If it rains the night before, flights must wait until midday the next day until the surface dries before they can land. Concern alone received 22 flights over a very recent 11-day period."
After the supplies arrive, they have to be distributed by land, which is a tortuous process, especially in the present rainy season. MacSorley gives one example of how difficult road transport is at the moment, because of the rain and the mud. A 350-km journey by truck which would take two to three days in dry weather, is currently taking between seven and 10 days.
Rains are so heavy at the moment that, in one recent case, Concern workers were in a building with roof and walls, but no windows. Yet, when the rains started, all were drenched in a couple of minutes.
Transport costs are horrendous, says MacSorley. He quotes USAID, the largest food aid donors to Darfur, as saying that, while a sack of food costs about $100, transport and delivery costs for that sack are $900. Only about 50 per cent of the food currently needed is coming from the UN World Food Programme.
Tom Arnold explains that it's a very complex and difficult situation in western Darfur and Darfur as a whole, with many political overtones and no easy answers or solutions. The immediate priority in a closely co- ordinated relief operation involving Concern and many other aid agencies and international organisations, is getting food and other supplies in to sustain displaced people living in the camps.
Back in the mid-1980s, drought made the subsistence living of people in this region even more difficult. There were years of low level conflict between African farmers and Arab nomads. Then early last year, rebels began attacking government targets as a protest against the neglect of Darfur.
The Arab Janjaweed militia, riding horses and camels, then began a relentless campaign with the tacit support of the government in Khartoum some 2,000 km away. This militia has behaved in very brutal fashion, but Khartoum denies that it has any links with it. Nevertheless, the attacks continue.
The UN says that the rape of women and girls and official harassment are still widespread in Darfur. The Roman Catholic bishops in Sudan go further, saying that a campaign of genocide is under way in the region.
Talks have been taking place in Nigeria to seek a ceasefire, but the rebels in Darfur recently rejected calls to disarm before a political solution to the conflict. These talks have now foundered. The African Union is starting to send peacekeeping troops.
The Sudan government faces a UN imposed deadline for improving security - otherwise it faces possible diplomatic and economic measures. However, the Sudan government says that is wants to continue working with the UN.
Some 500 villages in western Darfur, which is where Concern is working, have been destroyed. The infrastructure and institutional structures in Darfur are rudimentary and what is intact has been overwhelmed.
A local boy told us that he had been born in a village that was once rich and peaceful, but it was destroyed by the militia. The last time he ate fruit, an orange and a mango, was four months ago.
A vital aspect of Concern's operation in Darfur is that it can act as a witness to events. Many international organisations, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, are keeping a very close eye on the situation.
The security situation in Darfur is still so bad that displaced people living in camps are totally afraid to return to their villages, despite the conditions in the camps.
Just to add to the woes of Darfur, a plaque of locusts is currently headed in the direction of the region.
Angela O'Neill De Guilio is the regional director for Concern, with much personal experience of working in Darfur. She says that the people of Darfur, despite all their suffering, are amazingly dignified.
Most of the displaced people in western Darfur have ended up in camps, of which there are about 20. Concern is working in half of them, with eight of the camps in or close to El Geneina. The largest of these camps, in rural El Geneina, houses nearly 80,000 people.
Concern has completed its assessement work in terms of what's needed in the camps, including nutrition and sanitation, and has got its delivery programme well under way. It is providing nutrition on a substantial scale, including ready-to-use therapeutic food for malnourished children.
Other supplies include chlorine tablets, cooking utensils, jerrycans, latrines and soap, sleeping mats and shelter on a large scale basis. The supplementary food includes ready to use therepeutic food for severely malnourished children. In addition to nutrition, Concern also supplies Vitamins A and C and antibiotics.
Another essential element of Concern's programme is latrine production. In the camps where it is operating, it is organising latrine building programmes. As an example, in one of the camps, 1, 800 latrines are being completed by Concern so that there will be at least one latrine for every five households.
Once that target is met, Concern plans to increase this ratio to one for every two households.
O'Neill De Guilio explains that, because of the rainy season in Darfur, the mosquitoes are out in force. As she says, conditions are so bad thatany time you put out food, it immediately attracts swarms of flies.
Water is almost non-existent and so is proper sanitation, so the risk to the local population from malaria and other diseases is high.
With the Concern food programme, the Concern workers in Darfur concentrate on helping the most vulnerable sections of society - children under five and pregnant and lactating women.
Concern is also bringing in other essential supplies, such as sanitation facilities, soap, plastic poles and tarpaulins so that people can build shelter for themselves. Recently, customs and other bureaucratic delays have been eased, making it easier to bring in supplies.
Concern has about 90 Sudanese people, as well as 30 international workers, involved in its operation. Fr Jack Finucane, who has had 40 years experience of this type of relief work, is the country director in Sudan for Concern.
"Our work is highly effective in terms of saving lives and sustaining people," says chief executive Arnold. "What we are doing won't pull people out of poverty, but it will stop them from dying."
He says that they are not seeing deaths on a large scale because of the life-saving operations by Concern and other international agencies.
In the longer term, the aim is for everyone to be able to go back to their villages, but at the moment, the security situation is still so bad that nobody is prepared to leave the camps.
People in the camps are very fearful of even stepping out of the camp perimeters, says O'Neill De Guilio. The camps are relatively safe, although in many, the Janjaweed militia has infiltrated security forces there.
In El Geneina, people will leave the camps freely and walk around the town, but not elsewhere. Women go out foraging for food and firewood, often as early as 2 a.m., when they reckon the Janjaweed will be asleep.
There's a good reason for the women going out, as she explains: "If the militia attack a man, they will kill him, but if they attack a woman, they will rape and assault her, but won't kill her."
She finds it amazing that within a flying time of about eight hours from Dublin, you can go from a world where you have everything to the situation in Darfur where people have nothing.
Concern's initial response is to help displaced families meet their immediate needs by providing shelter kits, nutritious food, water and sanitation facilities - helping prevent the spread of illnesses and diseases such as typhoid and hepatitis E . But following this crisis, the work must continue, so that Concern can help families rebuild their lives in the future.
A donation of €30 will provide blankets for five children, while €60 will provide shelter for a family.
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