SUDAN CRISIS: Medical aid and food agencies are struggling to help those affected by the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today, writes Marie O'Halloran
When the director of the United States agency USAID said 300,000 people would die in western Sudan regardless of what the international community did, it was a wake-up call about the scale of the humanitarian crisis in Africa's largest country.
The situation in Sudan, about the size of western Europe, is described as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today and it prompted one senior UN relief officer in Sudan to say that 300,000 people would already be dead were it not for the work of the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders).
A renowned organisation with a medical team said to be permanently on standby for international emergencies, it was one of the first agencies on the ground. In the earliest stage of the relief effort it had 150 international workers in the devastated Darfur region, more than all the other aid agencies combined.
With a specific medical remit, MSF is quick to establish its emergency centres in afflicted zones to deal with immediate problems. The charity's director, Rowan Gillies, has warned after a month in the region treating sick and dying children, that the response of the international community has been too slow and half-hearted for a people at "huge risk" of massive numbers of deaths.
He echoes the calls of UN secretary general Kofi Annan to donor countries for increased aid. He has appealed for €200 million, with just 80 million pledged so far.
This funding is required to assist more than 1.2 million people who have been displaced from their homes through the marauding militias who have operated a "scorched-earth" policy of killing, raping and plundering in the region and contaminating water sources. The displaced and traumatised families have moved to some 137 camps dotted throughout an area the size of France.
A further 200,000 people have fled to camps on the border with Chad and the World Food Programme estimates that it will have to feed up to two million people by November because few crops have been planted this season and the local communities who have assisted the displaced with their own meagre resources are also increasingly at risk.
A UN assessment describes the "extreme vulnerability" of the population affected by the conflict. They are "generally living in extremely crowded conditions, having lost all sources of livelihood, and prone to various potentially fatal diseases. As a result, vulnerability is not a static level, but is at risk of seriously deteriorating further."
The rains began in early July, increasing fears of epidemics such as cholera and malaria, with diarrhoea-type illnesses on the increase. Sanitation is "dire" with few latrines in place. In the rainy season, with torrential downpours, sewage is flushing into the water supply. In some of the better-organised camps, families are receiving reasonable assistance including large plastic drums for the supply of water.
Under a 90-day plan to the end of August, the UN is preparing for a response to 111,000 potential cases of cholera, 87,000 potential cases of dysentery and 834,000 potential cases of malaria, in a country where 10,000 people die every year from malaria. However, the plan is dependent on co-operation from the Sudanese authorities and assistance from the international community.
Measles is also a major concern because of the cramped conditions in the camps, but a major vaccination campaign was undertaken throughout Darfur with some success.
In Kutum, about a three-hour drive from El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, one of Irish agency Goal's projects is a nutrition centre for severely malnourished children, who are below 70 per cent of their normal body weight. The practice has been to release the children when they reach 85 per cent of body weight, but Goal has kept the children until they are 90 to 95 per cent of normal weight, reducing the need for repeat treatment.
Concern International is working out the logistics of sending basic food aid as well as medical assistance. Angela O'Neill, who was in Sudan in July, explains: "We want to get 650 tonnes of food aid in to feed 45,000 children under five and pregnant and lactating women", to El Geneina, the capital of west Darfur, where people have been surviving on half rations for up to two months.
The food is a high-protein corn soya blend with minerals and vitamins and to move it requires 33 flights from Ethiopia to Nyala, the capital of south Darfur and the town with the best runway. A further 80 flights will be necessary to airlift the food to Geneina. With a capacity to take 15 tonnes in normal conditions, Geneina's airport can only manage about eight tonnes in the rainy season.
Ms O'Neill points out that this food aid should have been in place before the rainy season began, which has made setting up camp latrines and other facilities much more difficult, but the authorities permitted access only in recent weeks.
The people's "coping mechanisms are destroyed. They are an exceedingly durable people but this is crunch time and we are going to see catastrophe if food doesn't get in soon," she warns.