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Geneva
28 March 2009
Sudanese human rights activists are urging the international community
to prepare for the mass movement of internally displaced people in
Darfur as critical aid starts to give out. They say the expulsion of
13 leading non-governmental organizations by Sudanese President Omar
Al-Bashir is already having a serious impact and they fear people in
Darfur will flee to other places in search of help.
Sudanese human rights activists
are in Geneva appealing to the UN Human Rights Council and to various
U.N. aid agencies to help millions of people in Darfur whose very
survival is at stake.
They say 50 percent of the assistance
internally displaced people in camps receive is provided by the 13
private agencies. They say the United Nations complex humanitarian
operation in this conflict-ridden province cannot function efficiently
without their help.
Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir expelled
the agencies earlier this month following his indictment by the
International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes.
Mahmoud
Braima represents the Washington-based Darfur Association of the United
States. He tells VOA, 2.7 million displaced people in Darfur will be
immediately affected by the expulsions and at least 4.7 million people
will be indirectly affected in the long run.
He says food and
water will soon run out. And, he warns there will be outbreaks of
diseases such as diarrhea, meningitis and malaria once the rainy season
starts in a couple of months.
"We also think that people are
going to start moving again," said Braima. "There is going to be a need
for resources and they are going to move where they think or at least
perceive there are more resources available to them."
"That means that
they are going to move internally, particularly to other States within
the Sudan or across the border to the neighboring countries,
particularly Chad, Central African Republic. These two will be seeing
a new wave of refugees," he added.
Braima says the Sudanese government
will not be able to fill the gap left by the expelled aid agencies. He
says the government does not want the West to provide aid in Darfur and
wants to throw the remaining NGO's out of Darfur by the end of the
year.
"So, we think this is going to create a very dire
situation where some of us might think of it as genocide by other means
rather than by bullets - killing these people slowly through
starvation, disease and lack of sanitation," said Briaima.
Braima
says the international community must prepare for a mass exodus of
refugees from Darfur by pre-positioning aid in Chad, the Central
African Republic and areas within Sudan where people are likely to go.
He says having relief supplies on hand will help alleviate
some of the suffering experienced by people forced to flee their homes.
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