A Conscience International team traveled to Sreif Camp near Nyala,
South Darfur in mid-January, 2008 for their third visit to the troubled region.
Beginning in 2004, and every year thereafter, Conscience International teams have worked alongside local Sudanese partners
to fund distributions or facilitate delivery of needed items and help register new arrivals at Kalma and Dreij Camps, South Darfur, at Abu Shouk and Salaam Camps near El-Fasher, North Darfur, and now in Sreif and Driej Camps in South Darfur.
Several important changes were noticeable since the first Conscience International trip to Darfur in October-November, 2004. First, a partial peace agreement is in place, the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA, also called the Abuja agreement), signed in 2006 with the help of US special envoy Robert Zoellick. Second, there is a joint, but so far limited, African Union-UN deployment of peacekeeping troops (UNAMID) on the ground in Darfur.
The influx over the past two years of large numbers of internally displaced persons into the town of Nyala is noteworthy as well. With international funding of NGOs and increased spending by the central government of Sudan, the tempo of economic activity has increased. Many persons have apparently adapted to life in the towns by becoming laborers, small traders, or providing transport services.
In the camps, changes are evident as well. Kalma, the largest camp in Darfur, with over 100,000 souls packed into flimsy grass-and-stick huts has been broken up into smaller camps, largely as a result of factional disputes between Fur and Zaghawa tribal groups. One of these camps is Dreij, where Conscience International has funded new distributions of needed relief items through local Sudanese partners. A second is Sreif Camp, visited by six persons of the Conscience International delegation January 20-21.
Sreif (al-Sreif al-Jir) is a model camp, well run by several NGOs, including the US-based organizations CARE and World Vision. It holds about 4,000 IDPs (internally displaced persons). There are four tribes represented. Our delegation interviewed one of the tribal leaders who insisted, despite the services provided to the inhabitants in terms of food, health care, and education, that the people want to return to their own villages to be able to farm their own land, and to be able to regain the dignity of being self-sufficient rather than to be on the dole.
Obviously Sudan’s government wants people to see this camp, in part because conditions are sanitary and housing is the typical village style of round mud-brick, thatched-roof huts. Morale is also good. Long lines of schoolgirls in matching clothes, well coached by older matrons, sang and waved branches in an impressive performance.
At the camp we were introduced to a dozen or so UNAMID officers from Ghana, Italy, Nigeria, Norway, Egypt, and other countries. The hybrid UN-African Union forces’ white armored cars and camouflaged, gun-toting soldiers were much in evidence. The prevailing atmosphere seemed to represent peace, stability, and friendship. Although not exactly a Potemkin village, because the improvements in this one location are genuine, our delegation was nevertheless painfully aware that conditions at Sreif are not representative of all of Darfur.
When the background of the humanitarian crisis is analyzed, it becomes evident that Darfur has become a witches brew of environmental catastrophe caused by a decades-long drought, ethnic cleansing motivated by long-simmering tribal feuds, and the infusion of pernicious political and religious ideologies since 1983. It has not helped that the bitter and destructive war in the south was deliberately expanded into the western region of Sudan just as it was winding down under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Nor has it helped that the central government tried to fight a rebellion on the cheap by arming proxy militias, the so-called Janjaweed. The results were predictable, but in no way controllable.
Fortunately for the people in Darfur, the situation has stabilized since late 2004, with hundreds of official and unofficial camps for displaced persons spread throughout an area the size of France. That very “stability,” however, is a veritable sword of Damocles, threatening to fossilize into a new reality, a grim reality that is in no way stable. The environmental degradation that lies behind the events in Darfur has been greatly exacerbated by the war and population transfers. Political polarization has heightened, and the flimsy Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) needs to be further implemented and built upon if the region is to see peace.
The elements for a peaceful resolution are at hand in the form of the DPA’s Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reconciliation Commission (DDR), and in the presence of traditional sulha conflict reconciliation procedures under the aegis of tribal leaders. Last year Conscience International advocated to the Sudan government that these traditional procedures be implemented. They are now in place. In January, 2008, Conscience International was requested to provide technical assistance to the DDR. This is a significant opportunity that could have a major impact on the peace process.
Conscience International’s influence with Sudan’s
policymakers has been evident in the sequence of events since 2004. During 2006-2007, our delegations met several times with Sudan’s Vice President and other leading figures in the government. In January, 2008, our delegation met with the Foreign Ministry, the Strategic Studies Institute, the Future Trends Institute, Khartoum University Administrators, the Humanitarian Aid Commission, the Humanitarian Aid Committee of Parliament, the Wali (Governor) of Khartoum, the Wali (Governor) of South Darfur, and the Sultan of the Fur Tribe, among other individuals and groups.
While Sudan is widely viewed as a pariah nation in the West, the reality is that the US government continues to maintain an embassy in Khartoum, to interact with Sudan government officials, especially on security matters, and to work on many levels to influence Sudan and change the direction of Sudan’s policies. As a non-governmental organization with a record of humanitarian service in Sudan, Conscience International has the advantage of having built trust with official agencies in a way that a foreign government cannot. We therefore plan to continue our work in Sudan, and particularly in Darfur, where the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis” continues.
to fund distributions or facilitate delivery of needed items and help register new arrivals at Kalma and Dreij Camps, South Darfur, at Abu Shouk and Salaam Camps near El-Fasher, North Darfur, and now in Sreif and Driej Camps in South Darfur. 
Sreif (al-Sreif al-Jir) is a model camp, well run by several NGOs, including the US-based organizations CARE and World Vision. It holds about 4,000 IDPs (internally displaced persons). There are four tribes represented. Our delegation interviewed one of the tribal leaders who insisted, despite the services provided to the inhabitants in terms of food, health care, and education, that the people want to return to their own villages to be able to farm their own land, and to be able to regain the dignity of being self-sufficient rather than to be on the dole. 
policymakers has been evident in the sequence of events since 2004. During 2006-2007, our delegations met several times with 
