Darfur Refugees Forced Out

By Elizabeth Costner
Impunity Watch Senior Desk Officer, Africa

OTASH CAMP, Sudan – Recent reports state that Sudanese officials have been pressuring people to leave refugee camps in the Darfur province over the past weeks.  United Nations officials have said that the regime has resorted to forcibly loading some civilians onto trucks to clear them out. 

This week, UN officials announced that they have evidence Sudanese government forces were chasing refugees out of at least one camp, Otash, which houses 60,000 people on the outskirts of Nyala, south Darfur’s capital.  John Holmes, the UN humanitarian chief said in a statement: “Given that security forces were threatening the displaced with sticks and rubber hoses at Otash camp, the involuntary nature of this relocation is clear.”  UN officials say this “dangerous precedent” could jeopardize ongoing Darfur peace talks, currently taking place in Libya. 

Observers say Sudan hopes to empty the camps before January when the joint United Nations-African Union force of 26,000 peacekeepers is scheduled to deploy. 

Sudanese officials have admitted they want the camps to close because they have become too big, squalid and dangerous and have made the refugees too dependent on humanitarian aid.  They deny however that any one is being forced to leave, and dismissed such allegations as “more than fabrications” aimed at “distracting attention from the Sudanese government’s announcement of a unilateral ceasefire to accompany the peace talks.” 

Most Darfur refugees agree that conditions in the camp are poor but insist they have nowhere else to go, since their home villages are still too dangerous while the war between the rebels and the government continues. 

Since the conflict began in 2003, an estimated 200,000 people have died and more than 2 million have been displaced.

For more information, please see:

AP – Sudan Tries to Clear Out Darfur Refugees – 31 October 2007

International Herald Tribune – Sudan government strives to force Darfur civilians out of refugee camps – 31 October 2007

BBC News – Darfur camp eviction ‘fabricated’ – 30 October 2007

Guardian Unlimited – Darfur refugees forced out by troops, UN claims – 30 October 2007

For more information on the Darfur conflict, please see the following Impunity Watch reports: Peace Talks in Darfur Begin Without Rebels; Upcoming Peace Talks in Sudan in Jeopardy; New Atrocities in Darfur; Ceasefire Ends in Sudan; Ongoing Conflict in Sudan; Peace Talks on Darfur Scheduled for October 

Author: Impunity Watch Archive