Emergency appeals

June 2007

Family torn apart by militia attack

Fatma’s family was torn apart when heavily-armed militia attacked their village.

From the relative safety of the Al Salaam camp for internally displaced people, she worries constantly about the fate of her husband and elderly mother who went missing in the chaos that followed the attack.

“We were attacked very early in the morning and I saw several people killed, houses burnt and property being carried away,” Fatma recalls.

With her baby daughter strapped to her back, Fatma jumped onto a crowded truck to escape the violence. She was able to locate the rest of her children, but searched in vain for her husband and mother.

Journey to safety

During their arduous three-day journey to safety, Fatma and the other adults had nothing to eat.

Fatma and her children were among 200 new arrivals to recently register for assistance at the camp, where World Vision conducts food distributions. Al Salaam is the only camp in southern Darfur with room for new arrivals.

“I am happy that World Vision has received us well, after the experience of being hounded out of our village,” she explained. “We need food, water, health services and shelter, since the rainy season is here with us.”

October 2006

Displaced mother cares for 18 children

Khadija, a mother of six, is a recent arrival at the Otash camp for internally displaced people (IDP). Grateful to be alive, she has taken on the responsibility of caring for 12 orphans who lost their parents in the violence that has engulfed the Darfur region.

Conditions in the camp are tough, but Khadija says she will not give up on her new children, emphasising that now she is the only mother they know. “Society must take care of these children. All of them would still have parents, if fate had not claimed them,” she says.

Food and medical care

To help Khadija, the children in her care and other IDPs, World Vision has set up a medical clinic in the camp, which currently treats over 100 patients a day. The organisation also distributes food rations amongst the camp’s 53,000 residents and assists vulnerable children and adults in a supplementary feeding centre.

Khadija arrived in Otash camp after fleeing a militia attack on her village in southern Darfur. “We had no time to organise our departure. Me, my husband and our six children ran for dear life in different directions,” she says.

For two agonising months, Khadija did not know where any of her family members were, but over time all of her children found their way into Otash camp, one after another. “The greatest joy was two days ago when my husband also showed up.”

June 2006

Child Friendly Space – a safe haven for children

Eight-year-old Fatima and her family were forced to flee to Dereig camp for internally displaced people after armed militia raided their village in Darfur for the second time in the space of five months.

Fatima and her siblings scrambled onto the back of a truck to escape the attack, during which her father was killed.

This terrifying event remains forever etched on Fatima’s mind. “When the attackers came, the men sent us away to safety and they remained in the village to fight off the militia,” she recalled. “The attackers were shooting randomly across the village.”

In Dereig camp, World Vision runs two Child Friendly Spaces (CFS) to help children like Fatima re-establish some kind of routine that encourages them to play and socialise with other children who are also living in difficult conditions. Each day, Fatima and more than 200 other children gather at the CFS to play, learn and support each other. The centre’s staff are trained to provide basic psychosocial support for the children in their care.

Learning to read and write

Fatima says the CFS is her favourite spot in the bleak, treeless camp, where she enjoys skipping, playing with her friends and studying in class. As her home village did not have a school, the CFS offers her the chance to learn to read and write for the first time.

For Fatima’s mother, Haja, the CFS allows her the time and space she needs to complete household chores and generate income for the family by weaving mats to sell.

As well as the Child Friendly Spaces, World Vision also runs a supplementary feeding centre and a women’s empowerment centre in Dereig camp.

Internally displaced people

Around the world an estimated 25 million people are internally displaced, having been forced to leave their homes and relocate within their own country because of a threat of violence, environmental disaster or war.

In the chaos as they leave their homes, they often loose everything and become reliant on aid to survive. Officially called internally displaced people (IDPs), they are, however, not technically considered refugees because they are still within their country’s borders.

This means they are not guaranteed the same protection that refugees have under international law. For example, by law refugees cannot be sent back to their place of origin if there is still a chance they would be at risk by returning, but IDPs do not have this same protection.