provided to the children every day, for educational materials, and, in this year, for small-scale repairs. In addition to the schools, the Comboni friars maintain a large number of day care centers.
We travel on the following day to Boro Medina, which is 100 kilometers to the west of Raga. It takes five hours. There is a refugee camp in the town, and it was there that Sign of Hope’s work in the area started in 2007. The camp is home to people fleeing from war and floods, and to those returning to the region. We brought 200 first response packages during our first visit. To date, our assistance amounts to 1500 sacks and 75 tons of relief goods. In this trip, we are bringing 125 sacks, each containing 50 kilos of relief goods. These goods comprise basic food, blankets, plastic tarpaulins, cooking equipment, mosquito nets, soap and hoes. These goods go to families. Conditions have not improved since the previous year. The number of refugees has risen from 1,000 to 2,100.
A 40 year old woman belongs to the Borge, an ethnic group living farther to the north. There was fighting in her homeland. It caused her to flee in April of the previous year. She walked 15 days to get to the camp. “I was afraid, so afraid,” she says. “We were bombed by a plane, and shot at on the ground.”
The camps’ residents get very little support. The camp does not have any sanitary facilities. Nor does it have any housing capable of withstanding the elements. There is no medical care. The residents’ biggest foes are, however, hunger and thirst. Many of the people that we talk to complain about not having anything or very little to eat. Another problem: there is no water—and certainly no clean water—in the vicinity of the camp. This forces most of the women to trudge 40 minutes to the Boro river. Refugee families have recently arrived in the villages of Minamba and Deim Jalab. We deliver 45 sacks of relief goods there, with the rest going to Boro Medina. Sign of Hope donates € 20,000 for this delivery of goods. The organization plans to deliver a further € 40,000’s worth of goods.
We return on February 11, 2008 to Raga, where we confer with paramilitary and other soldiers. The civil war featured a number of battles and massive attacks upon civilians in the region. Many of these attacks were carried out by militia fighting for North Sudan. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2005 foresaw the disarming of all militia. The army serving the regime in Khartoum and the SPLA rebels were joined by a variety of militias in fighting for the two sides. Several of the militias’ commanders can be aptly described as warlords. They were prone to changing sides. This propensity made the security situation in the regions involved virtually incomprehensible. A monopoly on force exerted by a legitimatized government did not exist. Might makes right—that was the principle in the region. If you have a gun, you can get your way. That is why one of the most important objectives of the CPA is to disband these “OAGs” (“other armed groups”), or to integrate them into the SPLA or the government’s army. To achieve this, a team of observers has been dispatched. It is being led by the USA’s military, and is supposed to ensure the protection of civilians. Sign of Hope is an NGO. As such, we are entitled to report our observations to this team. In fact, we frequently receive from our on-site contacts reports of armed gangs and of conflicts in South Darfur and points farther away in Southern Sudan.
*
Our expedition in 2007 enabled us to prove that two militia were illegally stationed in Raga, notwithstanding the security arrangements forming part of the CPA, which had been ratified two years previously. We were able to speak to both militias’ commanders. Major Hassan Mohammed Abo commanded the Quot al Salam militia, which had stationed 3,750 troops in the city. Major Hamdan Ahmed al-Momim headed the Fursan militia, which had 1,320 soldiers.
Our contacts tell us during our expedition in 2008 that the Quot al-Salam militia has lived up to the CPA and has decamped. The Fursan militia is said, although three years have elapsed since the CPA, to still be in the city. In fact, it is supposed to have retained all of its arms. The only difference is that the original commander is no longer there. We have to verify this information.
The barracks that housed the Quot al-Salam militia in the previous year is empty. Except for the empty cartridges strewn all around the barracks’ sandy ground, there are no visible signs of the militia. Our trips through Raga also reveal no members of the militia. The Fursan are, however, still around. We confer with the current warlords. They are situated in the same headquarters in which we had spoken with the previous year’s commander. The militia’s emblem, a tin sign, is still posted on the building’s entryway. The commanders state that their army numbers 1,623 soldiers, of which 500 to 600 fighters are in Raga, where they are working as traders in the market or as herders. According to the commanders, all of the soldiers are fully-armed with G3 rifles and Kalashnikov assault rifles. These were purchased for the militia by the regime in Khartoum, which continues to pay them for their services, and to which they are loyal. For this reason, they are prepared to hand over their weapons only to representatives of the Khartoum regime. They would expect to be paid for such. The militia do not want to show us their guns, because they had done so for the UNMIS (United Nations Mission in Sudan), whose representatives had then taken photographs of them.
The militia’s heads refer to themselves as “Amir”. They tell us that they have heard that a large SPLA unit is making its way from Wau to Raga, so as to disarm the Fursan. They are not prepared to accept that. “We will not hand over our weapons to them. If they want to conduct talks with us, we are not going to say anything. If they want to, we will fight.” It is a danger-fraught conflict. Should the SPLA in fact let itself be drawn into fighting with the militia, the ones suffering will be, once more, the civilians.
In addition to the Fursan militia, there are other soldiers in Raga. Two regular battalions are stationed in the city, each manned by 350 soldiers. The battalions belong respectively to the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF)—the army of the Khartoum government and to the SPLA, which used to be the rebels’ armed forces. Together, these two battalions comprise a “Joint Integrated Unit” (JIU). This “merger” seems to be working out. We set up a meeting with the commander of the SAF (the Khartoum regime’s army). He tells us that the relationship between the two units is good, the fact that they were enemies until January 9, 2005 notwithstanding. He reports that the two commanders sometimes eat together. “There are no tensions between the soldiers of the JIU,” he states, “and if there are, it’s only when they are drunk.” The two battalions have formed a football team. It occasionally competes against other teams from Raga, the commander says. It is as if he wants to show us how normal daily life has already become, despite the decades of civil war. He is also worried about the problem posed by the Fursan, and by the facts that their presence and their being financed by the Khartoum regime represent grievous breaches of the peace agreements. The JIUs have, however, not been given the mandate to disarm the militia.
The successful refusal by the Fursan militia to let themselves be disarmed is an unmistakable indication that the state’s authority—and its legitimate monopoly upon force—is not respected in this part of Sudan. The peaceful departure of the militia would help stabilize the region. The Janjaweed mounted militia are still fighting in the Darfur region, and the situation there is accordingly dramatic. The Khartoum regime had equipped the Arab nomadic tribals in the region with modern armaments, and trained them in their use, so to enlist them in the fight against the African ethnic groups rebelling against the regime. These moves were motivated by the regime’s views that the Southern Sudanese’ demands for rights in and to their lands are unacceptable. The Janjaweed are doing more than fighting against armed rebels. They are oppressing the entire population—through the perpetration of mass murders, plundering and rape.17
Khartoum is completely closing its eyes to the countless cases of violations of human rights being committed upon ethnic groups not enjoying their favor. The regime is well aware of the traditional disrespect accorded by the Arabic nomad groups for the peoples of Southern Sudan. This is due to the latter’s having other religions and another skin color. It is also due to their being farmers. Khartoum is now ruthlessly exploiting this dislike, in order to pursue its interests. Darfur is home to Arab and African ethnic groups. The latter’s religion
