More than one year after the signing of
a Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which ended 21 years of civil war
between the central government and the southern-based Sudan People's Liberation
Movement/Army, there are still an estimated five million internally displaced
people in Sudan, including 1.8 million from the separate conflict in the
western Darfur region. The CPA paved the way for the return of those uprooted
from their homes in the south. The over-whelming majority of the estimated
1 to 1.2 million IDPs who have returned since the signing of the CPA have
done so without support from the international community. An institutional
framework to support the return and reintegration of the IDPs and refugees
has been put in place, but remains largely unused as lack of infrastructure
and livelihood opportunities, as well as the presence of mines and insecurity
have prevented the UN from promoting the large-scale return of IDPs and
refugees. Some two million IDPs from the south reside in the capital, Khar-toum,
where they are exposed to forced relocations within the city as part of
a government ur-banisation programme.
The CPA did not include other rebel
groups and left many local grievances unresolved. These have already led
to renewed conflict in the south as well as in other parts of the country.
In Darfur, an armed rebellion by local groups against the central government
has been met by a brutal scorched-earth counter-insurgency campaign. The
conflict has lasted for more than three years and caused hundreds of thousands
of deaths, the internal displacement of 1.8 million people, and an outflow
of more than 200,000 refugees to neighbouring Chad. Cross-border raids
by Sudanese government-supported militias have sparked internal displacement
in Chad and an influx of Chadian refugees to Darfur. The armed groups -
particularly the government-supported militias - attack IDP camps, killing,
looting and raping the inhabitants, and deliber-ately target humanitarian
workers. A 7,000-strong African Union (AU) peace-keeping mission has not
had the means to protect the civilian population, and the UN is negotiating
with an in-transigent central Sudanese government to accept a stronger
UN-mandated force. The AU force's failure to provide physical protection
from attacks has fuelled anger and frustration among the affected people.
A peace agreement of May 2006 has not had any tangible results as only
one of the rebel factions signed and intra-ethnic clashes have followed.
The international community has launched the world's largest humanitarian
operation in the area and managed to mitigate the worst material consequences
of the violence, although mortality rates remain above emergency levels,
and the humanitarian conditions in the IDP camps are worsening.
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