No rush to go home in Darfur

By Adam Mynott
BBC News, Darfur

Ali Alghali says it is too dangerous to go home

Ali Alghali and his family have been living in Kerinding camp on the outskirts of el-Geneina, capital of West Darfur, for three years.

The youngest of his 13 children know nothing but life in a camp for displaced people, and his family are resigned to having lost everything.

Sitting outside his stick and straw house which is covered with a large plastic sheet with Unicef printed on it, Mr Alghali told me they fled three years ago when the Janjaweed descended at night on his village.

He wiped tears from his eyes as he described how his three-month-old daughter Wedad Ali was shot dead by one of the gunmen.

Attacks on villages have become less common from the bloody early days of the Darfur crisis, when the Arab pro-government Janjaweed militia waged a campaign of terror on African villages.

Returning?

I asked Mr Alghali if the time was coming where he would be able to take his family home.

"No," he said.

"It is far too dangerous. People are still being attacked and killed. I cannot take my family home, they will be attacked."

This chronic state of insecurity ebbs and flows, but it has not improved significantly at any stage in the past three years.

It is the continuing killings, rapes and periodic attacks on aid agencies which prompted the UN to push for a change to peacekeeping operations.

On patrol

Everyone acknowledges that the African Union (AU) force has been understaffed and inadequately resourced.

West Darfur sector commander Colonel Ladan Bauchi Yusuf said: "In the face of glaring constraints in terms of manpower and resources, you can check around and see our achievements - everything is going fine."

The Sudanese want the AU troops to stay

Others say the mandate has not been tough enough to allow peacekeepers to prevent attacks on civilians.

I joined an AU patrol which set out from the base in el-Geneina north into the bush, heading for the village of Kondobe.

With an armoured personnel carrier in front and one behind, this was a robust, well-equipped operation.

But the AU doesn't have the equipment or manning levels to mount a sufficient number of patrols or checks on ceasefire violations to have a significant effect on continuing violence and human rights abuses.

In Kondobe, the AU officers checked with elders on the state of security, and asked whether the village was getting sufficient help from international aid agencies.

Distrust

Two United Nations teams have been in Sudan recently - one to look at the logistics of handing over control from the AU to the UN and the other a political mission hoping to persuade a reluctant government that the UN operation is in the country's and the international community's interests.

The Sudanese government has said it is happy with the AU operation.

West Darfur's Wali, or governor, Gafar Abdul Hakam, said the people in his state wanted the AU to be reinforced rather than replaced by the UN.

There is a deep-seated distrust of the UN peacekeeping operation, which they feel is under the control and direction of the United States.

There is also a fear that a UN peacekeeping force could start to carry out arrests on behalf of the International Criminal Court.