Violence continues to plague villages in West Darfur
FEATURE STORY: Gillian Sandford/ACT-Caritas
PUBLISHED: November 11, 2005
ZALINGEI, WEST DARFUR, SUDAN -- She grabbed her baby son and fled as the village was attacked by gunmen. She didn’t even know where her husband was.
"I was inside the hut. I didn’t take anything, just my baby and the clothes I was wearing. There was no time," said Kaltoom Adam Ishak, 18, from West Darfur.
Now Kaltoom sits outside a ramshackle tent of plastic sheeting in a camp for the displaced near the town of Zalingei, 50 kilometers from the village that was her home.
ACT-Caritas -- a grouping of Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox relief agencies -- is providing Kaltoom and other families like her with emergency relief. It is liaising with other agencies to ensure that they have food, and providing a cooking set and plastic sheeting for shelter. This is being delivered through a local partner, the Sudan Social Development Organisation (SUDO).
Given the recent conflict in Darfur, the story of her village of Nyangadulow is in some respects particularly tragic because it was a place of peace.
In previous years, there was harmony between African Fur tribes and local Arab nomadic cattle herders belonging to the Hutiya tribe, say villagers.
The Hutiya spent time in the village alongside the Fur and they had good relations, says the village Sheik, Abdullah Abaker, 28. "The land belonged to the Fur. But the Fur allowed the Hutiya to cultivate the area," he said.
But then the fighting erupted between the Hutiya (cattle herders) and the camel herding tribes of Arab nomads outside the village. According to villagers, this lasted for 20 days -- and it escalated.
Villagers say that the Hutiya were defeated and fled into Nyangadulow village -- pursued by the Arab camel herders.
"The camel herders entered the village and looted everything. And they didn’t discriminate between the Fur and the Hutiya," said the Sheik.
"They attacked the Fur and the village people with guns," he continued.
For Kaltoom, there was little time. "My husband was in the field and he fled. I was in the hut and I just grabbed the toddler and fled."
The mother and her 15-month-old baby boy, Achmed, were part of a mass exodus of people, trekking along the 50 kilometre road toward Zalingei, because they knew of the camps in the town.
"Some of us came by donkey, some by rented trucks," said Kaltoom. "All of us came together -- sixty families."
But in the mass of people, many were separated from loved ones. Kaltoom didn’t see her husband, Mohammed Ibrahim Abdulla on the road, or when she arrived in the camp. They were reunited only the following day.
"I was very happy to see him, because I was really afraid that I wouldn’t see him again," she said.
Kaltoom has no news of her village and what is happening there now. For the moment, she is not even thinking about the future. Destitute and displaced, she has problems enough.
Kaltoom Adam Ishak outside her temporary shelter in a camp for displaced people near the town of Zalingei in West Darfur, 50 kilometers from the village that was her home. She fled her village when gunmen attacked. "I was inside the hut. I didn’t take anything, just my baby and the clothes I was wearing. There was no time," she said.
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