Clifton Diocese’s CAFOD Man Reports Live From Darfur
Tony Vassallo, CAFOD’s Clifton Diocese Manager, is in Darfur this week.
Tony is with the Director of CAFOD (Catholic Agency for Overseas
Development) Chris Bain to see how CAFOD, as part of the ACT/Caritas
network, is helping people affected by the spiralling humanitarian and
security crisis in the region of Sudan. This is Tony’s report we’ve
just received from CAFOD’s office in Darfur. The pictures were taken by
Tony in the past couple of days.
Sitting cross legged on the dusty ground outside the hut made largely of sackcloth stretched over a structure made of branches, a woman is washing clothes in a pewter bowl. Beside her is her three year old son, who swings one handed around an upright pole. As I approach she looks up, curious to see a stranger in the camp. I ask if I can take her photo and she agrees but not before she sends her son into the hut to fetch her lime green shawl which she wraps round her head and shoulders.
Twenty thousand
She is but one of the twenty four thousand people who have found refuge from the conflict in the Dereig camp for internally displaced people, a fifteen minute drive from the nearest town, Nyala. For many of them it’s been their home pretty much since the conflict began some four years ago.
No photo can reproduce the sheer scale and awfulness
Although I had seen photos of these camps, and had braced myself for what I was going to see, no photo can reproduce the sheer scale and awfulness of the thousands of rounded mounds of blue plastic igloos or sackcloth huts which displaced people have cobbled together for shelter. Standing among them, I could see rows upon rows, cluster after cluster of these huts sprawled out around me as far as the eye could see. Now shabby after so many years, any material they can scavenge – cardboard boxes, discarded sacks, bits of tin – is used to repair their huts to keep out the dust and keep them dry in the looming rainy season.
No one should live in such appalling squalor. Forced from their villages which they’ve seen looted and burned, the camps offer them security, food to eat and water to drink.
Sense of home
Walking along the sandy passages that separate the clusters, I get the sense of some kind of order. People have grouped themselves in their families, tribes or villages, preserving their identity as much as they can. Many have tried to recreate a sense of home, by building fences made of dead bushes around their huts to give them some privacy.
The truth is that no one wants to be here, they want to go back to their villages but can’t because of the violence they know is waiting for them. Some have tried but have been chased away and their belongings stolen. Until they can be assured of a lasting and permanent peace, they’re all too frightened to return home.
Tony Vassallo
Useful URL : http://www.cafod.org.uk
Sitting cross legged on the dusty ground outside the hut made largely of sackcloth stretched over a structure made of branches, a woman is washing clothes in a pewter bowl. Beside her is her three year old son, who swings one handed around an upright pole. As I approach she looks up, curious to see a stranger in the camp. I ask if I can take her photo and she agrees but not before she sends her son into the hut to fetch her lime green shawl which she wraps round her head and shoulders.
Twenty thousand
She is but one of the twenty four thousand people who have found refuge from the conflict in the Dereig camp for internally displaced people, a fifteen minute drive from the nearest town, Nyala. For many of them it’s been their home pretty much since the conflict began some four years ago.
No photo can reproduce the sheer scale and awfulness
Although I had seen photos of these camps, and had braced myself for what I was going to see, no photo can reproduce the sheer scale and awfulness of the thousands of rounded mounds of blue plastic igloos or sackcloth huts which displaced people have cobbled together for shelter. Standing among them, I could see rows upon rows, cluster after cluster of these huts sprawled out around me as far as the eye could see. Now shabby after so many years, any material they can scavenge – cardboard boxes, discarded sacks, bits of tin – is used to repair their huts to keep out the dust and keep them dry in the looming rainy season.
No one should live in such appalling squalor. Forced from their villages which they’ve seen looted and burned, the camps offer them security, food to eat and water to drink.
Sense of home
Walking along the sandy passages that separate the clusters, I get the sense of some kind of order. People have grouped themselves in their families, tribes or villages, preserving their identity as much as they can. Many have tried to recreate a sense of home, by building fences made of dead bushes around their huts to give them some privacy.
The truth is that no one wants to be here, they want to go back to their villages but can’t because of the violence they know is waiting for them. Some have tried but have been chased away and their belongings stolen. Until they can be assured of a lasting and permanent peace, they’re all too frightened to return home.
Tony Vassallo
Useful URL : http://www.cafod.org.uk
Images
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