Jordan Times
Thursday, August 18, 2004
ICRC to send Jordanian staff,
additional relief supplies to Darfur
By Dalya Dajani
AMMAN — The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Wednesday
announced plans to send several of its Jordanian staff and additional relief
supplies to Darfur, where thousands of Sudanese civilians are plagued by ongoing
civil strife.
ICRC Communications Head Muin Kassis said the relief organisation would be
sending additional humanitarian supplies to the war-torn province over the next
few weeks.
“So far, the ICRC has sent six land cruisers, tents, and six electric generators
to Darfur,” he said.
“We plan on sending more supplies to the area which will include three trucks,
an IT specialist, a logistician and around six drivers to support our
humanitarian mission there,” he added.
The Geneva-based international relief organisation has been using its logistic
base in Amman over the past few weeks to meet the needs of thousands of
displaced civilians in the western Sudanese province, who have been forced to
flee their homes as a result of an ethnic cleansing campaign by
government-sponsored Arab militias. The attacks have driven more than one
million civilians, mostly farmers, into camps and settlements in Darfur, while
more than 110,000 others have fled to neighbouring Chad.
According to the UN, up to 50,000 people have been killed and about 1.5 million
displaced by the conflict.
A UNHCR-commissioned survey by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention on
children's health in the camps, showed that nearly four out of every 10 refugee
children under the age of five in camps in Chad suffer from acute malnutrition.
They described this finding as “an astronomically high rate compared to most
emergencies.”
“Two-thirds of young children suffer from diarrhea in some camps, and there's a
shortage of clean water, shelter and proper sanitation facilities,” said the
report.
“Conditions are worse than in the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when
two out of every 10 children under the age of five were acutely malnourished in
camps in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo. That's half the rate found in the
Chadian camps,” it added.
The humanitarian crisis in Darfur has prompted one of the ICRC's largest
deployments worldwide, with around 1,331 staff, including 155 expatriates,
tending to the needs of the displaced population.