As the security situation throughout Darfur deteriorates, the civilian population - especially in rural areas - continues to suffer the brunt of the violence.

According to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), around 1.7 million people in rural communities and host populations are either sharing dwindling resources with those who have been displaced or suffered loss of livelihoods due to social and economic collapse.

"The main problem is protection of civilians in rural areas, in villages and outside the camps in general," said Gemmo Lodesani, humanitarian coordinator for North Sudan for the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS).

Fighting between government and rebel forces, attacks on towns, villages and settlements for displaced people, as well as unhindered acts of banditry and intimidation, make it increasingly difficult for rural populations to maintain their way of life, and continue to force thousands of civilians from their homes. 

In early 2006, it was estimated that approximately 3.5 million people had been affected by the conflict. They are increasingly dependent upon the humanitarian community for food, fresh water, safe sanitation, protection and education.

"As far as protection of rural areas and protection of the population in the villages is concerned, perhaps it has never been so bad since 2003," Lodesani noted. He said that the lack of protection for civilians had always been the problem of Darfur. Although the situation had improved somewhat over the first half of 2005, it became the overriding concern again by August last year.

UNICEF estimates that over 100,000 internally displaced persons and 71,000 conflict-affected people in host communities cannot be reached due to ongoing conflict in North Darfur. In West Darfur, the situation is worse, with more than 184,000 displaced people and about 209,000 members of host communities isolated by poor security.

"Protection of civilians should be the key strategic element, if you want, to improve the overall situation in Darfur," Lodesani said. "Be it through a transition from the African Union to the UN or be it through the strengthening of the current African Union set-up."

Escalation of the conflict
"In many ways, insecurity in Darfur is more widespread, more intense and more frequent on all fronts," Baba Gana Kingibe, head of the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS, said recently. Dangerous elements, he added, "continue to burn, kill and rape on an ever-escalating scale".

Hashim Zakaria, director-general of the Sudanese Popular Committee for Relief and Rehabilitation (SPCR), which has been present in Darfur for decades, noted that the conflict had escalated because of splits within the rebel movements and certain militias and because a number of ethnic communities had started their own defence forces. 

"A lot [of communities] who didn't use to be part of this conflict until recently have started their own militia to secure their own land and people," he said.

"It is a very complex situation. There seems that almost monthly - if not weekly - more actors get involved in the situation. It's getting quite difficult to know," said Niels Scott, head of the UNMIS Regional Office for Darfur.

In North and South Darfur, a deliberate strategy - by government forces and proxy militias in particular - to target civilians in an effort to stem out alleged support for enemy groups, has provoked further displacement. In South Darfur, thousands of people have fled the Shaeria area and villages around Gereida town. 

In certain areas in West Darfur insecurity has been so pervasive - due to unabated harassment of the local population by various irregular armed groups and cross-border attacks in Chad - that aid agencies have had to withdraw, leaving communities without humanitarian assistance and extremely vulnerable to abuse. 

Lodesani noted that since the end of December 2005, no humanitarian organisation had worked in the areas of Kulbus and Selela in northern West Darfur, where Arab militia killed 39 people at Aro Saroi camp for displaced people in October 2005. 

"We don't have firsthand information. There is not only the fact that the last food distribution was more than a month ago - we don't have information about protection of civilians, what happened," he said.

An observer noted that in the whole Jebel Marra mountain region, in eastern West Darfur, there was "a return to outright hostilities with significant re-displacement". In violation of the ceasefire agreement, rebels of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) attacked the government-controlled town of Rokoro on 24 December 2005, followed by Golo on 23 January, leading to counterattacks by the Sudanese military and allied militias. "People have lost their houses, their belongings and their crops," he said.

"The government has basically chased away all the people in that town," Lodesani said. "Golo is a ghost town. Everybody has left."

The periphery of SLA-controlled areas in Jebel Marra, in particular to the north and east, was particularly unstable as a result of "a confluence of fault-lines", the observer added. These regions are not only border areas between SLA and government-controlled areas, but also mark the dividing lines between the two main SLA factions under the command of Minni Minnawi and Abdel Wahid Mohamed El Nur, respectively. 

"Neither the government nor the SLA is genuine about the ceasefire," Zakaria said.

The empty countryside

Although the nature of the violence is highly context-specific - and no generalisations can be made for Darfur as a whole - the impact on civilian populations is more predictable. The rise in violence has caused further displacement to camps or urban centres and increased restrictions of movement in some areas. The prevailing insecurity prevents the civilian population from leading a normal life and sustaining themselves. 

"Many farmers did not have access to their land and could not cultivate their fields or harvest crops. Migration routes were blocked, and nomads were not able to move with their livestock, preventing access to grazing and breeding areas as well as to vital water points," said Yasmine Praz Dessimoz, head of Darfur operations for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). 

"Due to restrictions of movement, people do not have access to essential services such as health centres. Markets are understocked; food insecurity has increased, forcing the population to find new coping mechanisms; and an already-failing local economy keeps collapsing," she added.

"The people don't feel safe; even those who are staying in IDP camps," Zakaria noted. "People who stayed or returned to their villages only cultivate very small areas just outside their village and leave the rest untouched because of insecurity." 

The SPCR director observed that many villagers from previously scattered settlements had concentrated in more centralised villages, to be better able to fend off potential attacks. In some villages on nomadic migration routes to the south and west of Nyala, the capital of South Darfur state, as many as 18 different communities had assembled, posing problems in terms of the provision of food, water, education and medical support.

Camel-herding groups - the Maharia in particular - who were stuck in the area after the SLA blocked their migration further to the north were the main cause of insecurity in this area.
In contrast, in SLA-held territory to the north and east of Nyala, Arab groups - mostly Misseriya - had congregated in more homogenous settlements, such as El Banjadid, Merier, Nietega, Taisha, Om El Khirad and Kriekier, in order to defend themselves against rebel attacks.

In North Darfur, to the south and west of Kutum town, Arab militia of nomadic groups who were blocked from migrating northwards pose a similar threat to the predominantly Fur population. Most villages in the area have been burned and abandoned, but displaced people are staying closeby in Fatta Borno camp, surrounded by militia who harass them. As a result, the 20 km journey to Kutum market can only safely be made with the biweekly AU escort.

"Blocking the nomads has added a third element to the war," Zakaria said. "Even if there is an agreement in Abuja [the Nigerian capital where the peace talks are taking place], I don't think we will see peace in Darfur. It is out of control."

In extreme cases, such as to the south and west of Kabkabiya town, the remaining farmers are literally kept hostage in their own village. Subject to severe harassment, they are forced to pay "protection fees" or risk being attacked. Militias threaten to kill them if they try to seek refuge in camps or nearby towns. 

The result of the pervasive insecurity, as in many other areas in Darfur, has been an exodus from the countryside, leaving it largely deserted.

"People are leaving their lands," an aid worker in West Darfur said. "Their lives are being made impossible." Arab militia were harassing residents who were cultivating and their animals were trampling their crops, she said. The “protection fees" they paid did not guarantee their safety. 

"The people are tired. They carried on and on, but it has been three years now," she said. "Step by step families are coming [to camps]." Large parts of the countryside of West Darfur, including the area west of the Jebel Marra mountains and the southern region of Mukjar and Wadi Salih, were largely empty. "In the long term, if nobody is cultivating the land, there will be no food."

"The emptying of the countryside has been a slow process that lasted three years, with the result that we have now," Lodesani said. "[Darfur is] eventually reaching the end of this process, because there is not too much left in the countryside to keep on emptying."

Protection and reconciliation

The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Sudan, Jan Pronk, has called for the strengthening of the international community's ability to protect innocent civilians in Darfur, as well as more emphasis on inter-Darfurian tribal reconciliation.

"We must be ready to have more strength on the ground, much stronger than we have now," Lodesani urged. Neither the Sudanese government nor the SLA or any other actors - the government militias, Arab militias, Chadian rebels and other splinter groups would "comply with a piece of paper," he said.

Pronk stressed, however, that the UN had never asked for a transition from AMIS to UN peacekeeping forces. He noted that the UN - with 14 existing operations - was reluctant to take on a new peace operation, as it was already overstretched and lacked sufficient troops. "The UN is not inciting the AU to hand over to the UN," he said, noting that the strengthening of the current AMIS forces was a valid option. Pronk acknowledged, however, that if the AU decided to opt for the transition of forces the UN had "the moral and political obligation to respond positively" because it was part of its mandate.

"I believe more and more in reconciliation talks on the ground in Darfur and not only in Abuja," Pronk said. As local commanders did not necessarily take orders from their leaders anymore, and "warlordism" was on the increase, the solution to certain conflicts had to be found at the local level.

"Of course, you cannot replace Abuja," he added, "but now that the rebel movements are so fragmented, you could also have some regional reconciliation efforts in order to solve local conflicts."

"In Abuja, they are completely overlooking the third group, which are the Arab tribes," Zakaria added. He noted that they were statistically the largest group in Darfur and had their own reasons to be disgruntled with the Sudanese government. "Whatever agreement will be reached, it will not be their agreement. In no time they will pick up their weapons and start attacking the SLA and even the government," he said.

"We need peace between the government and the SLA and we need tribal reconciliation," Pronk said on a recent visit to Shaeria town. "There is no need to wait for a result in Abuja. You can start here. At some point you have to stop the killing and reconcile among the tribes."

Improved humanitarian situation, but no funding

Despite the insecurity, Daniel Toole, director of the Office of Emergency Programmes of UNICEF, noted that during 2005 aid agencies managed to stabilise the humanitarian situation in many areas around Darfur, as reflected in the main indicators of malnutrition, mortality, access to water and education. 

"We see now that 85 percent of the population has access to primary healthcare services in camp settings. You see that more children are in school than ever before - something like 300,000 - and 46 percent are girls," Toole said. "Water supply and sanitation is something like 70 percent of the population. That is something we have never seen, and we struggled very hard to build that up."
Many of the major donors have announced reductions in funding for 2006, however, and instead of expanding humanitarian assistance from camps to underserved rural areas, aid agencies are struggling to maintain their current level of services. Insecurity and lack of funding had constrained the expansion of humanitarian programmes into remote and rural areas, potentially exacerbating the "pull-effect" of camps for displaced people, as communities were moving towards areas receiving better international assistance.

With only 2.1 percent of its Darfur emergency programmes for 2006 funded so far, UNICEF warned that without significant and timely investment, the humanitarian crisis that was controlled in 2004-2005 would "certainly return and erode the progress made".

Toole stressed that in addition to the continuation of life-saving programmes, such as water, nutrition and health, the protection of vulnerable groups within camps would continue to be a priority, including support for child friendly spaces and women who had been raped.

Lodesani noted that measures such as firewood patrols for women venturing outside the camp and the distribution of fuel-efficient stoves had increased the ability of people in the camps to conduct a normal life, which was one of the main protection issues last year. "That was one of the major issues, especially rape, and although we don't have statistics, we have the perception that it has improved," he said. "But there is, in my opinion, still a lot to do."

"As much we can say that there has been an improvement on this type of protection," Lodesani added, "as much we can say that the protection of civilians outside the camps has never been so bad. Never been so terrible." 

The return of civilians to the countryside would only be possible if the security situation improved, according to Dessimoz of the ICRC. "A secure environment will allow the population to move freely, get access to farming lands, water points, grazing lands, markets and slowly become self sustainable, and eventually reduce their dependency on aid," she said.