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SUDAN: Hepatitis Threatens Hard-hit Darfur Refugees – Doctor

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 13 2004 (IPS) - A physician working for the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) has returned from Sudan’s troubled Darfur region with harrowing tales of women and children battling an outbreak of hepatitis in makeshift refugee camps with little or no clean water, health care and nutritious food.

Henia Dakkak, a specialist in public health, says the water-borne disease has hit camps in all three states in the area with a vengeance.

So far, about 625 hepatitis-related cases have been documented in West Darfur alone, where 22 people have died. In one refugee camp, 149 cases have been registered, and eight people have died, six of them pregnant women.

”The situation is alarming. It is an absolute nightmare,” Dakkak told IPS. ”Pregnant women are particularly vulnerable.”

UNFPA is calling for ”immediate action” to avert an epidemic among displaced Sudanese, she added.

The virus, transmitted through water contaminated with human waste, could spread quickly in a region where 1.4 million people have been displaced – 1.2 million in Sudan and about 200,000 in neighbouring Chad, she added.

The disease has been identified as the hepatitis E strain, which usually has a fatality rate of one to four percent, but is several times more lethal for pregnant women, she added.

The outbreak has compounded a situation where women have already been hard hit as targets of rape.

In a report released in May, Amnesty International (AI) said its representatives visited three refugee camps set up by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Chad, where they obtained more than 100 personal testimonies from refugees.

The organisation was able to collect the names of 250 women who said they had been raped in the context of the conflict in Darfur and to collect information concerning an estimated 250 further rapes.

”This information was collected from testimonies of individuals who represent only a fragment of those displaced by the conflict. Other human rights violations which have specifically targeted women and girls are: abductions, sexual slavery, torture and forced displacement,” AI said.

”The rapes and other sexual violence in Darfur constitute grave violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, including war crimes and crimes against humanity,” it added.

Dakkak returned to New York following a six-week mission to the region, where armed Arab militias, backed by the Sudanese government, are accused of ”ethnic cleansing” and ”genocide” of black Africans.

According to Dakkak, ”rape is a very sensitive issue.” For cultural reasons, ”it has been difficult for women to come forward and report cases of rape,” she added.

It is also difficult to determine who the perpetrators of the crimes are because sometimes rapes happen inside refugee camps and sometimes outside of them, said Dakkak.

The atrocities in Darfur, where an estimated 30,000 black Africans have been killed and over 1.4 million displaced, have been committed by marauding Arab militias called “janjaweed” (”men on horseback”).

The Sudanese government has not only been accused of creating the militias but of also turning a blind eye to their continued killings. But the government in Khartoum has denied both charges.

The U.N. Security Council last month gave Khartoum a 30-day deadline, until the end of August, to help contain the widespread atrocities – or face possible U.N. economic and military sanctions.

Dakkak, who moved freely in refugee camps because of her fluency in Arabic, concurred with senior U.N. officials who have described the situation in Darfur as one of the “world’s worst humanitarian crises.”

With heavy rains, she said, aid workers are having more difficulty travelling in what is a vast geographical region. Donors must come forward with ”more money, more vehicles, more personnel and more clean water,” she stressed.

Despite heavy rains, the World Food Programme (WFD) said Friday it plans to provide food aid to 1.2 million of the most vulnerable people in Darfur this month.

So far, WFP has received about 123 million dollars of the 195 million dollars it needs to fund operations until the end of this year.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has complained that although he appealed for 349 million dollars in total humanitarian aid for Darfur, only 161 million dollars have been pledged to date.

According to the U.N. Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the five major contributors are the United States, Britain, the European Union, the Netherlands and the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO). The office declined to provide a detailed breakdown since the numbers are changing rapidly.

”Tightfistedness from France, Japan, Italy, Spain and Germany is the main reason for the shortfall,” the ‘Washington Post’ said in an editorial in July.

For example, said the Post quoting U.N. sources, France has donated just over six million dollars to Darfur, whereas the United States has given 130 million dollars and committed to an additional 170 million dollars.

”If European and other rich donors won’t act,” said the editorial, ”then the United States will have to do so.”

UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Obaid said Wednesday the threat posed by the hepatitis virus ”underlines the need for greater support for all sectors of the humanitarian effort in Darfur.”

”Food must remain a priority, of course, including nutritional supplement for pregnant lactating women who have already been weakened by malnourishment and anaemia,” she said.

The outbreak of the disease ”highlights the urgency of greater international support for assistance – from food to water and sanitation to health care,” added Obaid.