IDP Camps in Darfur

Darfur region in Sudan has recently suffered more internal conflict and its residents are forced out of their homes into IDPs Camps. Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Camps are refugee camps for individuals and families who have been forced from their communities but remain within the borders of Sudan.

In this state of unrest, medical facilities have been destroyed, leading to a weak medical structure, personnel shortages, and urban-rural imbalances. Diseases such as malaria, gastrointestinal diseases, tuberculosis, snail fever, sleeping sickness and AIDS prevail. Roughly three-quarters of the inhabitants are women and children.

On Thursday, 24 April 2008 the Government of South Darfur State revealed that two IDP's in Kalma Camp north of Niyala were killed due to differences among the displaced over participation in the Census. 

Description of an IDP camp in Geneina by a visitor:

"Of the more than 2.5 million displaced people in Darfur, 30 percent are school-age children. Without the prospect of education, these children will remain forever stuck in their daily struggles, which seem to have no end. Children in the camps desperately need school supplies, desks, and other basic necessities that are required for any learning environment.

As I walked through the camp, I visited the hospital, the children at the Pre-K school, and spent time with some of the IDP families. I also had a chance to see the hand pump that Islamic Relief had installed, which serves as the only source of water for families in the camp. As I met with each family, I tried to internalize their respective situations by reading their faces and spending time in the huts they live in, called tukuls; with their meager possessions laying on dirt floors. They left their lives behind and moved to Geneina, looking for peace and solace. Before the camp opened, these same people slept under the open sky".

Recent reports revealed confrontation between the government police and residents of Kalma Camp as the government launched a campaign on disarmament of the Camp.