Tribal loyalties shift continually and migration may not always be due to ethnic cleansing, writes ROB CRILLYfrom Otash Camp, South Darfur
UMSININ Abdullai Adam saw death drop from the sky. She called it the day it rained bombs.
“I saw planes come across the sky dropping bombs. It was like it was raining. I saw children, they were with their goats and cows on their way to get water, and they were all killed. I saw it,” she said in the matter of fact tone adopted by Darfur’s war-weary people.
It shouldn’t be like this. More than 15,000 soldiers and police officers have been deployed as part of an international peacekeeping force.
And today judges at the International Criminal Court are expected to issue a warrant for the arrest of President Omar al-Bashir so that he can answer charges of murder and war crimes.
Umsinin and her family arrived at Otash camp, close to Nyala, capital of South Darfur, on Friday.
She, and 50,000 people like her, are on the move – a reminder that the region’s messy, multi-layered conflict is no closer to resolution.
They fled fighting that engulfed Muhajiriya, a strategic town that flip-flopped from government to rebel control and back again throughout January and February.
It had long been held by Sudan Liberation Army rebels who signed a peace deal with the government. That meant the town was left in peace.
All that changed when guerrillas of the Justice and Equality Movement arrived, sparking weeks of clashes.
In turn, the government sent in its Janjaweed militias and Antonov planes in an effort to regain control.
More than 26,000 people have since made their way to El Fasher, capital of North Darfur. Thousands more have been arriving in Otash.
Umsinin (50) said she left when Janjaweed militiamen swept through the town on horseback.
“The place had been very dangerous for a long time and this was the last we could take,” she said, holding a toddler wearing a hijab – a small leather pouch containing a verse of the Koran – for protection.
Her husband was still building their new home, a wood-framed shack covered in reed mats.
While she juggled scruffy children caked in the pale dust of the camp, he was arranging their meagre possessions – a couple of sacks of clothes – inside the hut.
That was all they had managed to salvage from their home. It had been burned, just like so many other homes and villages during the past six years.
Most of those who fled Muhajiriya are from the Zaghawa tribe, one of the main groups backing the rebellion.
The government has already said it plans to replace them with 25,000 families from the Birgit tribe. However, military officials in the region warned against making the assumption that the displacements are a form of ethnic cleansing.
They point out that many Zaghawa arrived during the 1980s as a result of drought in their northern homelands and had lived among the Birgit until war split them apart.
“There’s no doubt many have left through fear at what might happen next, but there may also be people leaving because that is what the rebels have told them to do,” said one officials. “A big movement of people means they can accuse the government of ethnic cleansing.”
The war in Darfur is a morass of different conflicts. Rebels are fighting each other as well as the government.
Arabs militias are fighting rebel groups and also among themselves. Tribe is pitted against tribe. And superimposed on the whole mess is a cross-border proxy war between Chad and Sudan , each of which is supporting rival guerrilla groups.
The example of Muhajiriya – where support for rebel factions or government splits along ethnic lines and tribes have shifted over the years – shows nothing is ever simple in Darfur.
Toby Lanzer, the UN’s deputy humanitarian co-ordinator in North Sudan, said the latest mass movements were a reflection of Darfur’s complexity.
“It’s a bad time to be on the move because the land is bone dry. It’s very difficult to reach people in rural areas and we know there are places where there are thousands of people in dire straits,” he said.
Today, judges at the ICC will announce their decision on President Bashir, who faces 10 counts of murder, war crimes and genocide. They are expected to issue an arrest warrant.
Diplomats, the UN and aid agencies are bracing themselves for a backlash from Khartoum and fear that international organisations could be expelled as the government asserts its authority.
In Otash, the principle of justice seems to come second to the search for peace and the chance to go home.
Adam Ali Hassan (21) said many people were prepared to forget who committed which crimes if it meant displaced people could go home.
“All the people have got to work together to have peace,” he said. “All the people who make problems and all the people who did not make problems – all have to work together.”
Whatever happens today, peace seems as elusive as ever.