Site navigation


Melinda Young, Oxfam's Senior Program Coordinator for Darfur. Photo: Oxfam

Darfur: five years on

Australian aid worker Melinda Young worked on Oxfam’s Darfur response from the start of 2004 until mid-2005. She returned at the start of 2007 and now heads our programs in the region.

“A woman came up to me in tears and described how her village had been attacked by militia and she had watched her child burnt alive. That was four years ago, shortly after I arrived in Darfur, but I still remember it vividly today.

"Then, the conflict was at its height with violent burning and looting of villages and mass displacement of hundreds of thousands of people. The first time I went to Kalma camp in South Darfur it was just a piece of wasteland, with the earliest arrivals taking shelter under plastic bags and twigs. We went to assess the conditions there and we thought the area could shelter 27,000 people at most. Little did we imagine that Kalma would eventually provide refuge for over 100,000 people, or that over 2 million would in time live in such camps across Darfur. Nor did people expect the camps would still be here now – they were only expected to be short-term.

"Oxfam’s initial response focused on providing water and sanitation. In a major humanitarian crisis, toilets are not always the first things that spring to people’s minds! But they are incredibly important. In the early days, women in the camps kept stopping me and telling me what they really needed were toilets. The women had nowhere private to go so they had to wait until dark – which exposed them to the risk of violence. We were also very worried that diseases such as cholera would spread quickly in the new, crowded camps without proper sanitation. The conditions in Kalma camp at that time were horrific.

"One of my proudest moments in Darfur was in early 2004 when we constructed the first trench latrine in Kalma. It was like a festival, with young children watching bemused and amazed as their mothers joined in and helped dig the pits. Although the latrine was just a simple pit structure and some plastic slabs we all knew it was such a big step towards making people safe.

"When I left Darfur in mid-2005 people were optimistic that the conflict might end soon. It was a shock to come back 18 months later and find no progress. The conflict has changed, but not improved. There are fewer attacks on civilians now, but there is little left to attack. Many villages have already been burnt – they can’t be destroyed twice. It is still far too dangerous for people to go home. Meanwhile, security for aid workers is much worse than it was before and it is getting harder and harder for us to operate.

"Oxfam’s work in Darfur has changed enormously over the five years. At first, we were just trying to keep people alive another day by delivering aid as quickly as possible to people who had lost absolutely everything. But now, as the situation has changed and the conflict goes on, our work has had to change too. If someone has had no access to their farmland for the last five years, how can they support their family? People do not expect to leave the camps anytime soon, so we are working more to provide them with livelihood opportunities to earn an income.

"If there is an end to the conflict soon there will be enormous challenges to overcome, but also optimism and hope – but that is already fading. People are still clinging to their last hopes for peacekeepers who can protect them. But they have been hoping for this for the past five years and patience is running out.

"Resolving the Darfur conflict will need to incorporate Darfuri traditions, but also look to the future. Traditional mechanisms such as compensation for the people who have had families killed and homes burnt and looted, are crucial to any sustainable peace deal, yet are often overlooked and misunderstood by international mediators. But so much has changed now and we can’t just go back to how things were in Darfur before the conflict.

"There are new challenges. Compared to 20 years ago, there are now far more people and animals competing for dwindling land and resources, and there is far less rainfall. Traditional nomadic lifestyles are under threat from the changing environment and urbanisation, as many people now only feel safe near big towns. Darfur needs responsible and representative government to create new policies to deal with these changes. All this needs to be addressed if a solution is to be found.”

Video of the Sudan crisis

Five years on, the crisis in Darfur remains one of the world's largest concentrations of human suffering.

Camp life: Darfur (slideshow)

More than two million people have been forced to flee their homes in Darfur, Western Sudan, and are seeking refuge in camps such as this one in Northern Darfur. View the slideshow.