DARFUR WORKING GROUP led by Mr Ray Newton
posted 1st september,2008
1
Gender-based Violence (GBV) and Child Protection Workshop
Nyala Sakali IDP Camp, 23 Aug. 08
Reported by: Fatima Ahmed
This workshop is funded by the Darfur Training Committee, Scotland
Darfur crisis brought about gender-based violence and child abuse. The victims are often caught on
the way to the forest to
collect firewood for cooking 
the meals or palm leaf to
make handicrafts to sell for
cash to subsidized food
rations.
In a joint efforts with Women
Centres run by women in
Nyala it has been possible for
me to organize training
workshop. The workshop
focussed on protection
issues for both women
and children.
Photo above: areal View of Dirage and Utash IDP camps,Nyala, South Darfur State, Sudan
Photo below: example of group discussion of the Training workshop participants.
Several women
participated. The 
trainers are women
and one man with
vast experience in
GBV. Many women
and young
children attended
the workshop. The
participation has
been beyond the
organizers
expectation.
Furthermore, I
used the workshop
opportunity to meet
more women to discuss issue that are important to help women become leaders in their community.
Photo by: Bedreldin Shutta
Photo by: Mohamed Afsar
2
This is workshop would not have been possible without the tremendous efforts from my assistant
guide Dr. Muna who stood for facilitating permits from the security forces who have to grant me a
“permit” to enter the camps.
This is a breakthrough for me. I am very happy that the workshop took place and that there are
seminars expected to take place in the next. 
Greetings from School Children
View of Dirage IDP camp, Nyala 
Photo by: Mohamed Afsar
Photo by: Bedreldin Shutta
Arbiya’a Market
(the conversations were originally in Arabic, of course)
I met the 32-year-old Maryam of Dirage IDP camp. She is very busy at Arbiya’a Market surrounded by several men and women buying from her handicrafts.
I came close to her and she thought I am a client who wants to buy a basket from her weaved from palm tree leaves. When I told her that I want to know about her situation in the camp, aaha you are the munazamat people, she said. The word munazamat refers to charity organizations. She seems to be annoyed by presence but I have no idea why is that. I tell it from the appearance of her face.
Maryam said that “you munazamat (NGO) people you always ask us too many questions and you seem not organize yourselves, we get a surveyor in the morning asking all sort of questions and another comes in the afternoon asking the same question. I just wonder if you at all speak to each other!”
I nodded my head in agreement with her. I started helping her in arranging her handicraft in a style that attracts buyers. Having interacted with her she started to trust me and I asked her how she spends her day in the camp.
Maryam said that “I live in the Dirage Camp, which hosts about 24,000 Internally Displaced People, for more than three years by now. I am an active woman and I never stayed idle in our village. You know when a group of armed people attacked our village at dawn of a Saturday morning which is Suq (market) day; I lost my husband and two of my four children. My cousin took me with my children to small woodland where we hid ourselves till the night fall and thereafter we sneaked towards Nyala city. We went straight to the Dirage cam as we do not have relatives to accommodate us in Nyala besides we lost every livelihood means. We came to the Camp Sheik (Head) who registered me and my children. I have given a tent and some plastic tarpaulin of which I managed to build a makeshift residence. I have been given a registration number and a ration card. I received oil, sorghum, flour and lentils. However, I need to have onions, okra and tomato or potatoes so that I make curry or sauce for my children to eat it with the assida (porridge). Fining items such as vegetables and meat is not easy. Sometimes I barter some oil or sugar for meat. In my village we eat meat at least four times a week. In the camp meat is a luxury which is not accessible to the vast majority of the IDPs.
Since I am a good handicraft specialist, one day friend of me and I went out to collect palm leaf to use for weaving baskets, food-covers, Huffrat Dukhan covers known locally as birish. When we reached the wadi valley of Rumaliya and started collecting the palm leaf suddenly we saw armed people riding camels coming towards us. We dashed running like horses fuelled by power of fear. We ran for more than 6 kilometres and managed to usefully escape from the armed men. I heard that several women and girls were raped while collecting firewood, water or fodder for the animals.
My legs swelled and I was in total fear for several days. I used hot water and salt to ease the pain in my legs. After this incident I decided to come to Suq Arbiya’a (Wednesday market) and I barter some of my food ration items with palm leaf. When I do not have enough food ration items I borrow the palm leaf from the retailer and then pay him after a week or so following the selling of my products.
I work the whole day and night to weave the baskets and other handicrafts in order to take to this weekly market. I make little profit from which I pay for the school fees for my children. Recently some NGOs gave the children handwriting books and bags. I need to ensure that my children are in school to become educated so that they serve their community in the future. I have no future because I did not go to school. My husband went to school but he got killed in his early age and I want his children to study and be teachers or doctors.
I do not like to be in the camp because we loose our control over resources and we have to depend very much on food handouts. But also I cannot go back to the village because there is no security and we have nothing in hand to enable us to restart our life as before the war.
War is bad and I wish if rebels and government agree to end it and bring peace to. Now my children’s future is gloomy…. I cannot see any hope… no hope … means no future …..”
I am very sad to see that we are at war!!
End…
Posted 24th June,2008
Sudanese women rights groups condemn arrest of female Darfuri
Tuesday 24 June 2008.
Statement by Sudanese Women Rights Groups on the Arrest of, Zobida and Zahra Hagar Sandal and the Infant, Hashim Abdel-Shakur
Monday June 23, 2008 — We, the undersigned from women civil society organization, have grave concerns for the welfare of Zubaida Hagar Sandal, her 9-month-old baby son, Hashim Abdel-Shakur and her sister Zahara Hagar. The two women and the baby were arrested on June 8, 2008, from their house in Khartoum by National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) officers.
Our solidarity with Zubaida, her son and her sister comes from our concern for their safety and being held at unknown location, which is regarded as an enforced disappearance. We are opposed to their continued detention, which is illegal and is against all Sudanese traditions. In addition, we have serious concerns for their well-being as for other female detainees. This is especially alarming in light of recent campaign of arrests in the capital following May 10 events, which has taken place in house-to-house searches, public transport and the streets, targeting individuals from Darfur who are residents in Khartoum.
We recall that Zubaida was in contact with the Committee for the Defense of Individuals Affected by the May 10 events. Zubaida’s husband, Abdel-Shakur Hashim was arrested from his office in Omdurman in May 14, 2008. After her husband’s arrest and subsequent disappearance Zubaida had issued a press release on behalf of the family outlining their concerns for his safety and calling for his release. When she, her baby son and he sister were taken from their house the NISS took them in the pretext that her husband wanted to see their son. Since then no one has heard anything about their whereabouts.
As women groups we are here emphasizing our commitment and support to Zubaida, her son and her sister Zahra and all the women detained following May 0 events. We also condemn the violence inflicted on thousands of Sudanese women and children from Darfur who have suffered from displacement, rape and other forms of sexual violence as a result of the current conflict. For these reasons we campaign for Zubaida and her sisters from Darfur to be protected, to have access to justice and to be compensated for their suffering.
We are reminding the Sudanese Judicial system and law enforcement authorities of their commitment to Sudan’s constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, African Union Protocol and CEDAW. We call on the authorities immediately release Zubaida, Zahara and all the women who are detained in secret detention centers and to allow to contact their legal representatives and families and to not separate Zubaida from her son. Furthermore, we call on the authorities not to mistreat or torture Zubaida, her baby son and her sister whilst in detention.
We are here demanding the immediate release of Zobida, her child and Zahra as well as ensuring their safety with the other thousands of Sudanese women from Darfur being jailed and suffering the consequences of the crises.
We are calling on all women organizations and organizations which work on women’s rights to work with support this press release and to work with national and international organizations to provide support and press the authorities on behalf of Zubaida and others affected by May 10 events.
1) Hala Alkarib & Monim Aljak: SIHA Network
2) Zahara Tukras –Women Development organization –Alfasher North Darfur
3) Karak Myok –DIAR –Rumbek South Sudan
4) Dolly Oding –women Development organization Juba
5) Asha Elkarib: Sudanese Organization for research and Development
6) Limya Aljayle: Women in the Media Association
7) Mahasin Alabass: Babkir Badri Scientific Association for Women
8) Neamat Kuku: Khartoum Gender Center
9) Zeniab Badr Eldin : Alam Community group
10) Faisal Albager :Journalists For Human Rights
11) Rashida Al Ansary and Jane Alaw: Al Amel Center for victims of torture Rehabilitation –Nayala South Darfur
12) Linda Ferdinand : WATAP Women group-WAU-South Sudan
13) Fahima Hashim and Tarig Mustafa :Salma Women Center
14) Madina Dosa: Madina Center for Women Development –Nayala, South Darfur
15) Zeinab Alsawe: Women Empowerment Initiative for Peace -SWEP
16) Ahalam Naser : Sudan Center for Trade Unions Rights
17) Madiha Abdulla &Sabah Adam : Alag Media Center
18) Samia Alhashimi : Mutawenat
APPEALS TO:
Mr Abdel Basit Sabderat
Minister of Justice
Federal Ministry of Justice, PO Box 302, Khartoum, Sudan
Fax: +249 183 770883
Salutation: Dear Minister
Mr Ibrahim Mohamed Hamed
Federal Ministry of the Interior
PO Box 2793, Khartoum, Sudan
Fax: +249 1 8377 6554
Salutation: Dear Minister
COPIES TO:
Dr Abdel Moneim Osman Taha
Rapporteur, Advisory Council for Human Rights, Khartoum, Sudan
Fax: +249 183 77 08 83
Mr Babiker Abdulatif
Head of the General Prosecution Attorney Bureau for Khartoum State
Fax: +249 183 770883
Dr Priscilla Joseph
Chair of the Human Rights Committee, National Assembly, Omdurman, Sudan
Fax: +249 187 560 950
DARFUR: Our own contributors to International Development, the Darfur
Training Committee held its AGM on
Monday June 2nd, 7:30-9:30pm, at The Quaker Meeting House
Victoria Terrace
The meeting was well attended.
The Meeting was Chaired by the Honorary President of the DTC,
MALCOLM CHISHOLM MSP
and included Keynote Lectures by Darfurians
and Sudanese Refreshments.
Posted 5th April,2008
Notes on Darfur Humanitarian Disaster
The humanitarian disaster in Darfur may not be as simple as it appears in some press.
Powerful nations, US, UK, China, India and Norway have all interest in Sudan’s oil reserves (currently 5 billion bbls, compared with US total oil reserves of about 20 billion bbls). There is a good exploration prospect for still higher amounts of oil reserves in Sudan.
The present (2008) regime is supported by China, India and Malaysia, which are the main beneficiary of the oil production (about 414,000 b/d in 2006 of which 94,000 b/d was for local consumption). See http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/Sudan/Profile.html. See also the attached document for more details.
US would like to have a regime in Sudan that is more sympathetic to them and to the West than it is at present. Therefore, Western countries are very critical of Sudanese government for its approach to the humanitarian problems in Darfur, whereas China and India do not agree with them.
The present regime of Sudan may be afraid that there could be some covert attempts to topple it and bring about a new and more western friendly regime. Of course, the worse the humanitarian problem is seen in international political arena, the better might be the chance of success for such a regime change (Attachment).
I am not in sympathy with the present regime in Sudan, but having seen so many regime changes in developing countries for the interest of powerful states, I am suspicious of their sincerity when they talk about solving the humanitarian problems.
The UNAs and the Humanist organisations, of course, must do their best towards resolving the current humanitarian crises as soon as possible.
Dabir Tehrani/28 March 08
Enc: Article from afrol website.
ATTACHMENT
UN Darfur vote turns scramble for Sudan's oil
Source: http://www.afrol.com/articles/13921
Afrol News, 10 September (2007?) - As the UN Security Council is debating a US draft resolution on the Sudan crisis, based on colliding views whether a genocide is or is not happening in Darfur, the issue of Sudan's oil is becoming a key factor. If an oil export embargo is approved, China and India would lose their influence over Sudan's vast oil reserves and a Khartoum regime change would open up these resources to the West. The US is in favour of sanctions, China is against.
The population of Darfur is presently, as the UN puts it, suffering from "the world's worst humanitarian crisis." It is well documented that the Khartoum government bares much of the responsibility for this immense suffering, which the UN calls "ethnic cleansing" and the US yesterday called "genocide". It is however also well documented that the US through its closest African allies, helped train the SLA and JEM Darfuri rebels that initiated Khartoum's violent reaction, as afrol News reported on Tuesday.
While the US and UK governments are urging the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on Sudan due to Khartoum's "acts of genocide" and to stop the humanitarian crisis, many Asian and African countries are sceptical to the sudden rush to condemn Khartoum. They suspect that the real interests behind the proposed sanctions and opening for the use of military force against Sudan is motivated by other than humanitarian motives to meet the Darfur crisis - a crisis which the West actually helped create.
After all, Sudan is believed to hold Africa's greatest unexploited oil resources, even greater than those of the Gulf of Guinea. US oil companies are barred from operating in Sudan and other Western companies are chased from the country by the Washington administration. The Canadian oil company Talisman Energy is even facing charges of "complicity in genocide and war crimes" in a US court due to its past engagements in Sudan. At present, Asian oil companies dominate the field in Sudan.
For China, Sudan has become an important oil provider and an important country to build a national sector of internationally operating oil companies. The rapidly growing Asian economic giant has urgent strategic needs to secure its own oil sources - only during the first seven months of this year, Chinese oil imports had risen by 40 percent compared to the anterior year. An estimated six percent of China's oil imports are from Sudan, a number that Beijing officials want to increase. Large investments are already made and others are planned.
China's state-owned oil company China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) owns a 40 percent share of the local Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC), which controls two of the most important oil fields in the Western Upper Nile Province. Starting in mid-2005, China's CNPC is foreseen to produce oil in the Melut Basin east of River Nile. Other Chinese companies are involved in the construction of the 1,392 kilometre long pipeline from the Melut Basin to Port Sudan at the Red Sea and in the US$ 215 million project of constructing an oil export terminal port in this Sudanese city.
Other important players in Sudan's slowly growing oil industry are mostly from India and Malaysia, two other industrialising Asian countries with urgent strategic needs to secure their parts of the world's oil production in an ever fiercer competition with US interests. India's ONGC Videsh and Malaysia's Petronas have bought substantial shares in Sudanese oil fields as Western companies have been pressured to divest in the country during the last years.
For China, India and Malaysia, therefore, the US draft resolution on sanctions against Sudan to the UN Security Council poses a direct economic threat. Just hours after US Secretary of State Colin Powell told a US legislative committee that the killings in Darfur over the past year "constitute genocide", the US representative in the Security Council, John Danforth, presented the draft that included an embargo on Sudanese oil exports. China, as the only Asian power with veto rights in the Council, however has announced its willingness to block these sanctions.
The pressure on China and other Security Council members is however immense. Global human rights groups, an almost united world press corps and powerful political groupings hold the view that the world is obliged to stop the "genocide in Darfur". Not stopping it would mean being co-responsible, as when the world failed to stop the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Time has run out for Khartoum, which should have acted earlier to stop the "Darfur genocide", they say. China would face strong condemnation if it blocks the UN resolution. The Germany-based Society for Threatened Peoples already yesterday released a statement titled: "China's thirst for oil prolongs genocide in Darfur."
Critics however hold that it was the Western thirst for Sudanese oil that in fact started the fighting in Darfur by training the SLA and JEM (anti-Khartoum) rebels. Chaos in Sudan, German analyst Uwe Friesecke told afrol News, will give Western powers an opportunity to intervene militarily and provoke a change of the unpopular Islamist regime in Khartoum. With new powers thus handed to the World Bank and the IMF to open up Sudan's economy, the country's vast oil reserves would be accessible to Western oil companies, the analyst holds.
According to Mr Friesecke, it is no causality that the powers that are "dictating the peace" between Khartoum and South Sudan - the US, UK, Norway and Italy - are all countries with big oil interest. The US has a declared aim of making Africa one of its main oil providers. Norway bases its economy on oil and is to host an upcoming donor conference for Sudan. Norway's ever-expanding state-owned oil companies are present in many similar zones. The UK and Italy also host major oil companies. "There are made detailed plans for post-peace Sudan in the West," maintains Mr Friesecke, referring to US government sources.
While the debate over the UN Security Council's upcoming Sudan resolution is turning into a power struggle over Sudan's future oil production, more than 1.2 million civilian Darfuris remain displaced and without sufficient international aid. Humanitarian organisations speak of severe lack of funds to secure decent food, water and housing to the many displaced. Most Western powers decrying the "ethnic cleansing and humanitarian crisis in Darfur" have contributed with very little funds, except the US, which is by far the largest donor.
By Rainer Chr. Hennig
Update posted 8/12/07
International court probes Sudan officials
( WebNews Thursday 06 December 2007)
INTERNATIONAL Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo announced on
Wednesday that he was opening an investigation against Sudanese government
officials over systematic attacks on refugee camps in Darfur.
Mr Ocampo said that his office would also investigate violence against aid
workers and peacekeepers in Darfur, including an October 29 attack that left
10 African Union soldiers dead and one missing.
Mr Ocampo urged the United Nations security council to demand that Sudan
hand over acting Humanitarian Minister Ahmed Muhammed Harun, who was
formerly in charge of security in Darfur and has been indicted for crimes
against humanity.
The prosecutor said that the investigation would probe "who is maintaining
Harun in a position to commit crimes," raising the possibility of
indictments against higher-level officials. "When will be a better time to
arrest Harun? How many more women, girls, have to be raped? How many more
persons have to be killed?" Mr Ocampo asked at a security council briefing.
"What is at stake is, simply, the life or death of 2.5 million people."
Sudanese UN ambassador Abdelmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad warned that any
security council pressure over the indictments would complicate
international efforts to promote peace talks in Darfur and deploy a
26,000-member joint UN-African Union peacekeeping mission. "Ocampo exposed
his moral bankruptcy. He resorted to fabrications," Mr Mohamad claimed after
the meeting.
The Darfur conflict has claimed more than 200,000 lives and uprooted 2.5
million people since ethnic African rebels took up arms against Sudan's
Arab-dominated government in 2003.
Critics accuse Sudan of arming janjaweed Arab militias that have terrorised
Darfur villages. Khartoum denies this.
Policy issue on Darfur for UNA National Conference March 2008
Edinburgh UNA welcomes the initiatives made by the UN to resolve the
desperate situation in Darfur and urges UNA(UK) to:-
a) publicise and lobby the British Government to voice its concern over the
delaying tactics of the Government of Sudan to reach a peaceful settlement
based on the equitable distribution of power and resources to the regions
and the establishment of human rights especially for women.
b) emphasise the need for women everywhere to be able to empower themselves
in civil society as a prerequesite to the social, economic and political
development of their country. Attention is drawn to the example of a group
of experienced Edinburgh UNA members forming a new Darfur Training Committee
including an authority on Darfur rural affairs. This is a long-term project
to train Darfur women to help themselves as exemplified on the website
www.darfurtraining.org.uk
The Darfur Training Committee gave a Press Conference in the Scottish Parliament Building on 23rd. October
From Left to Right - Malcolm Chisholm MSP, Dr. Abdel Adam, Joanna Dingwall, Ray Newton, Dr.Alec Gaines.
UNA meeting on Darfur on 23rd.
October in the Meeting House with Dr. Abdel Adam and Marium Hassim about
the training of Darfur women to empower themselves in the decision-making
processes in Sudan.
