Washington, DC — Julianna Lindsey is a program officer for the United Nations Children's Fund's Humanitarian Response Unit. She traveled through Sudan for five weeks coordinating Unicef support for the crisis and providing general assistance for country offices. During her trip she visited some of the most troubled areas in Darfur including Niyala, Jinena and El Fatir.
Lindsey spoke with AllAfrica's Jaclyn Schiff about her experience in Darfur and Unicef's concerns about the refugees and internally displaced persons that she visited.
What were living conditions like for the refugees that you visited in Darfur?
The situation is frighteningly serious. People are living in very close quarters in groups anywhere from just a couple thousand, to one camp I visited that had almost 80,000 people living in one area. People have tried to put together small little shelters, basically by taking a few pieces of grass and bamboo and branches from trees and just laying them on top of each other to try to create bits of wall and roof.
But we are actually very, very concerned that as soon as the rains come - and they have actually already started - people are just going to be inundated with floods and will not have enough protection from the elements at all. We are very concerned about healthcare. There are not yet enough health facilities to treat the diseases that people have, and these diseases are only exacerbated by the close quarters. We're very concerned about measles, for example, and so we have put into place, with the World Health Organization and the government of Sudan, a measles campaign for all of the children of Darfur, to try to immunize as many children as possible.
That's almost finished now. We don't have the complete coverage statistics yet but we were hoping for at least 90 percent coverage. We're very concerned about water issues as well. At the moment only about one third of all the displaced people in Darfur have access to safe drinking water. That means that the rest of the people are either getting only a very small amount of water or the water that they're drinking is dirty. Much of the water that I have seen people in Sudan drink over the years honestly looks the color of tea. It is amazing to think that people will drink stuff that is this brown. You can only imagine the diseases that it brings with it.
As you mentioned, the rainy season has started. What have you done to prepare?
We have done a number of things in preparation for the rainy season. We've tried to pre-position supplies in Darfur itself, and in some of the outlying areas through our NGO implementing partners. We've also tried to prioritize for immediate support some of the areas that will become cut off once the rains get very bad. For example, we're looking at drilling new boreholes in areas we know we're not going to be able to reach at all by the end of July or August. So we're trying to get the boreholes into those areas now, and then the areas that we will still be able to reach in late July or August we're delaying until July or August.
We are also working with organizations to try to make sure we get plastic sheeting in. The government of the United States assisted, and a small amount from the Italian government. These governments have provided plastic sheeting and blankets so that people can at least stay dry during the rainy season and so that they can stay warm. Sometimes when the rains come, it can also get cool at night. We have almost enough plastic sheeting for one piece of plastic per family. It hasn't all yet been distributed, but we think we have enough contributions for about 80 percent of the plastic sheeting that is required. Again, that is only for one plastic sheet per family. These are plastic sheets that are just several square yards in size and the families often have five or six people in them. It is still a very, very uncomfortable situation to say the least.
Let's talk more specifically about aid, in terms of financial amounts. What has been raised? What do you think needs to be raised?
Unicef has requested just under $40 million of assistance in our latest consolidated appeal for Darfur. We have received more or less just over a quarter of that assistance, but obviously it is nowhere near enough. We have had to take out loans both from other parts of the United Nations as well as internally here from headquarters. We've loaned significant amounts of money to our country offices so that they can go ahead and procure items in advance because we just don't feel like we can wait until the money comes in from the donors - if we do that it is entirely possible that many more people will die, especially given the fact that the rains are coming.
What have refugees told you about their experiences?
There are continuous reports of attacks on villages. People did tell me that their villages had been burnt down, that they had to flee in the middle of the night, that they lost all of their possessions, that their closest family members and their friends in many cases were killed. Women, even girls, had very serious reports of rape. In fact, today they're even still afraid of going outside some of the camps out of fear that they may be raped or attacked.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
What is Unicef doing to help female refugees who have been raped?
It is clearly a very serious problem, and we're trying to put in ways that women and girls can get assistance after they're raped - for example, referral systems with some of the partners that we work with so that they can get adequate healthcare. Interestingly, many of the women and the girls are willing to talk about their experiences more than we find that they often are in other situations, but it is still obviously a very traumatic and painful experience for them, to say the very least.
What more would you like people to know about what you saw in Darfur?
I think there are a couple of main messages that need to be sent. This is clearly the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today. There are a million people who have had to flee their homes and they are living in truly appalling conditions. We're very worried that this is going to get worse before it gets better frankly, especially because of the rains coming. And at the moment we do not have the resources that we need to provide adequate response. We desperately need additional supplies and cash contributions from governments and from individuals. It is amazing the difference that just a small individual contribution from a person can make to try to save the life of someone over there.
