Darfur IDPs rejects camps liquidation

January 9, 2016 (NYALA) – A secret conference of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and refugees leaders in Darfur has rejected a government plan to liquidate the camps for the internally displaced on the grounds that their areas of origin were still unsafe.

The participants considered the return to their original villages and localities before the normalization of the situation and the provision of peace therein as “a semblance of suicide”.

Deputy chairman of the IDPs and refugees association Adam Abdallah said leaders of refugees and IDPs from all Darfur’s five states camps had met last week in Kalma Camp , 15 km East of Nyala , capital of South Darfur State, to discuss what they called “Government propaganda” about the return of refugees and IDPs and the closure of the camps.

Abdallah told Sudan Tribune that the displaced and refugees had decided not to return to their areas of origin under the current “critical security conditions”, despite their absolute desire to leave the camps later on when security prevails in their villages.

He said the three –day conference was carefully planned whereby the IDPs were able to attend and leave in secret away from the eyes of the security agencies.

The IDPs official further said the conference had maintained that the approval of the voluntary return programme under the deteriorating security conditions in all of Darfur’s areas puts the lives of citizens in danger.

“The armed Government militias are still in full control of the IDPs villages and farms,” he said, pointing that these militias had openly stated that they were opposed to the farmers’ return to their land “because the resumption of farming activities threatens cattle pastures”.

Sudanese Vice-President Hasabo Abdel Rahman during a meeting in El-Fasher last December said that the year 2016 would be a decisive year for the closure of IDPs camps in Darfur.

Abdel-Rahman said within no more than a month the IDPs have to choose between resettlement in the camps where they are and vowed to convert it into residential areas, or return to their original areas.

Abdallah said the displaced are welling to return to their original places “when due arrangements that preserve their human dignity are made”.

“We are compelled to stay in the camps until when we are convinced that security prevails in our villages and until when the armed pastoralists who now control the farms and villages of the displaced are removed,” he said.

He stressed the need to provide the necessary requirements of life such as water resources, health and education before the return of the displaced.

“The displaced need nobody to convince them to return to their places of origin once the suitable conditions are put in place, simply because the camps’ life is no less than hell to them,” he said.

(ST)