Learning from Darfur /
Bir-ed-dik, “the cockerel’s well” in Arabic, is a small village at the far north of Darfur, up where Sahel meets Sahara, territory controlled by rebels since 2003 when war broke out with the Sudan government. Strategically important, its wadi holds two wells dug in the sands after each rainy season to supply water during the dry months to follow.
Entering the village not long ago, I found a few dozen women and old men sprawled listlessly in the sparse shade of thorny acacias. Refugees, they owned nothing but their ragged clothes – faded and dark with dirt – and a few cooking utensils. Unusually for Africa, even the women had nothing better to do than lie in the sand.
The group had arrived here early in 2004, walking 200 miles from their fields in a much less arid area when Sudan’s proxy militia, the janjaweed, swept in. “Some of us headed for towns like Kebkabiya, El Fasher, Kutum,” Abderahim Mohamedin told me. He was old and tired. “Others went to Chad, and we also wanted to go, but it was too difficult. So we went north. But at each place we were attacked again and had to move. We ended up here.”
Most of Darfur’s 2.5 million displaced people live in large camps in government-controlled areas where aid agencies have worked since 2004. But, often more by chance than by choice, thousands find themselves among the rebels.
“We depend on Bir-ed-dik people for food, clothes, and mats,” Abderahim said. “We lost all our cattle and goats. We don’t know the region so we can’t look for wild plants. We’ll stay here and wait for food aid to come.”
But humanitarian agencies and aid rarely make it to rebel areas. Abderahim’s destitute band survives only on desert seeds and fruits. Their new neighbors help, but villagers and refugees alike survive on the same drought fare that got them through the great Sahel famine of 1984.
The desperate band recalls those images of famine that shocked the world 20 years earlier. Darfur, after years of unnoticed wars, is the new Ethiopia, the symbol of heart-wrenching African poverty.
Beyond the cliché, the Ethiopian famine belt and Darfur have something in common: their poverty is by no means inevitable. Agronomists say both regions could export produce rather than depending on aid. As in so many places, poverty here is first and foremost about politics.
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