ACT-Caritas malnutrition survey shows impact of Darfur's conflict on Zalingei town
NEWS STORY: Hege Opseth/ACT-Caritas
PUBLISHED: August 11, 2005
ZALINGEI, SOUTH DARFUR, SUDAN -- More people, who live in a town in Darfur, are suffering from malnutrition, than the people who live in the nearby makeshift camps according to an ACT-Caritas survey published today, August 11, 2005.
This finding is the key point of the report. The survey indicates for the first time that more people, who have chosen to remain in their homes in Zalingei town, may be in worse condition than the internally displaced persons (IDPs), who were forced to flee their villages and now live in large camps around the town that are served by humanitarian agencies.
The survey was conducted during a three-week period in July and August. It covered the people of Zalingei town and its adjoining camps in West Darfur.
Since the conflict in Darfur erupted in 2003, fighting and the influx of IDPs have placed great pressure on towns’ people throughout the region. Camps, full of fleeing IDPs, sprung up outside towns such as Zalingei.
The camps continued to grow in size, sometimes dwarfing their hosting community. This is the case of Zalingei, which has a population of only 30,000, while the nearby camps of Hassa Hissa, Hamidya and Kamsa Dagaic, house a still growing population estimated at around 80,000 people.
In the survey, it is revealed that the level of malnutrition is higher among the 30,000 town-residents than in the surrounding camps. Some 18.1 percent of town children under the age of five suffer from malnutrition, while 14.5 percent of camp children are clinically undernourished. A survey of camp children fourteen months ago showed that nearly ten per cent more children were then suffering from malnutrition. And that was at a time when the camps’ population was only 30,000 – less than half of what it is today.
"Our survey clearly shows we have to increase our efforts for the host community. The results are a cause of great concern and show the strain the communities have been under the past two to three years," says the team leader for the survey, Tamsin Walters, from the UK-based humanitarian agency Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD).
Host communities all over Darfur have taken in desperate internally displaced persons (IDPs), sharing shelter and food. When relatives, fleeing for their lives, came to major centres in Darfur, the lives of the inhabitants also changed dramatically.
"They had no other choice than to share whatever they had. The fact that the IDPs have access to services like health clinics, education and distribution of food causes tension and conflict among the host communities and the displaced. To neglect the needs of the host communities can cause great danger in the long run," says Mayen Wol Jong, acting director of the ACT-Caritas programme in Darfur.
In Zalingei one can witness the sight of some town inhabitants going to the camps and building makeshift shelters so that they can secure access to the very food, clean water, life support items, education and health care that are available to IDPs.
"This is very common in emergencies like this and we see it happening all over Darfur. For ACT-Caritas the solution will be to strengthen our outreach programmes. Clearly we will keep focusing on the needs also among the host communities," says Jong.
The influx of IDPs has also caused problems because of limited land resources. The ecological system is challenged and trees are cut down for firewood, causing desertification.
"Host communities are suffering from the drought that added to Darfur’s problems this year and in many places there are food shortages. This year's crop is limited in many places and makes more people dependent on food aid in the coming year," comments Jong
"The results of our survey are a cause for concern, given the fact that there has been a lot of intervention during the past year," says Walters, explaining that, "A lot of the problems have to do with feeding habits of the younger children. These are issues that our health promotion team will address. For the coming year, we need to remind the international community that while camp populations are totally dependent on food aid, we also need to support the host communities. As the survey shows, there is a need for intervention in the town of Zalingei."
Nearly 25,000 children under five, pregnant and lactating women have been admitted to the ACT-Caritas clinics during the past year. Nutritionist Sylvie Kokere expects the level of malnourishment to rise in the coming months with the onset of the rainy season.
"We have seen a lot of new admissions in our clinics across West and South Darfur over the last weeks and the rainy season has only just begun. Over the last few months, we managed to stabilise the situation and the mortality rate went down. Now we are dealing with more severe cases [of malnutrition] every day," says Kokere.
Mortality rates in both surveys were found to be below alert levels and indicating that the situation is under control at present with no excess deaths from malnutrition or disease. In the town the under-five mortality rate was fractionally higher at 1.6 deaths per 10,000 per day, when compared with the the camps at 1.1.
