Darfur: Canadian delegate helps bring vital water relief to isolated areas
Access to water is an ongoing concern for the people of Darfur, particularly during the dry season. Canadian Red Cross delegate Biserka Pop-Stefanija, recently returned from Sudan as a water engineer in Darfur with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Biserka was part an ICRC team working to help alleviate water shortages in communities. The overall aim of the ICRC is to help residents in remote rural areas become self-sufficient, so that they will not have to move to overcrowded camps in search of aid.
"The villagers welcome the ICRC team and they talk about their problems. The main concern for all of them is the lack of security. The armed conflict in Darfur has an impact not only on their daily life, but also on their future," concluded Biserka.
At the beginning of the conflict, there were massive human displacements. People in rural areas had no choice but to run for their lives to camps on the outskirts of poor urban centres.
Although more than two million people fled to these camps, many others managed to stay in their villages and tried to find ways to cope on their own with the daily challenge just to survive. In order to avoid further displacement, the ICRC aims to help people to sustain their livelihoods in remote villages. Oré is one such village.
Oré village is located near the town of Abata, more than an hour's drive north of Zalingei in West Darfur. It has almost 150 huts and 650 inhabitants. The road to Oré is cut off by wide seasonal rivers that are now dry, as the rainy season does not start until June.
Because of the sandy roads, the village is only accessible by donkey carts, 4 X 4 vehicles and trucks. On the way to Oré, the landscape reveals ruins of villages dispersed on both sides of the road as a sign of what the conflict has done to Darfur during the past four years.
Repairing water pumps
During the current dry season, almost all riverbeds have dried up in West Darfur. In the smaller villages, a drop of water is worth its weight in gold. This is what sheik Abdul Karim Adam Abakar from Oré village immediately points out.
"Before the conflict started four years ago, we had our own livestock: sheep, cows and camels. People were happy in this village. Now life is difficult. What is most important for all of us is water. We desperately need access to safe water."
In Oré, the only water hand pump the rural community possessed was broken at the beginning of January. When it had stopped working, the villagers approached the health clinic in Abata to explain to a Red Crescent volunteer what had happened and the ICRC was contacted.
"On average, the minimum water for survival is 15 litres per person per day. Being able to repair the water hand pump is very important for the residents of Oré," explained Moubarak Abdulrahman, an ICRC engineer.
When the water started running through the pump, both the ICRC's water team and the residents of Oré were happy and satisfied.
"This is an additional encouragement for the ICRC to do more, not just for this village but for others as well. The children's smiles constitute the most encouraging factor for us to continue to do our job," said Canadian delegate Biserka Pop-Stefanija, an ICRC water engineer.
