No money, not enough food, rampant sickness, night-time raids. Darfur today

A dust cloud blew across the market of the Abu Chok refugee camp in Darfur as Ahmed Abdullah Ibrahim summed up his desperate situation. "It is unsafe for me to go back home and it's not safe here," he said, his face wrapped up against the desert winds in a white headscarf. "Even yesterday, we had people in the camp come to attack us. They came in and fired shots." Ibrahim's dilemma is repeated at more than 100 similar camps across Darfur -- a region of western Sudan as big as France - and it is one that is focusing renewed scrutiny of the international response to a crisis that has already claimed at least 200,000 lives and forced an estimated 2.5 million people to flee their homes. The camp, which has 54,000 residents, is one of Darfur's largest. Malnutrition, malaria and typhoid are rife, while cases of diarrhea are rising. Some observers feel that after a period of "low-level hostility," Darfur could be about to tip once more into widespread fighting between African rebel groups, government forces and their agents, the notorious Janjaweed, an Arab militia responsible for some of the most pitiless massacres and rapes of civilians. It is an unbearable thought for the refugees. A young man in his 20s, standing around with a group of friends, said he had come from Jebel Si, another camp in western Darfur, where there had been recent fighting and people were killed. He had fled to a camp that seemed more secure. Abu Chok is four miles from the government-controlled town of Fasher where the African Union forces are based. "It's not secure and it's not safe in the camp," he said. "There are still weapons coming in from outside and there are attacks at night. It's the government that makes the attacks." The claim is repeated time and again by others, and the UN supports their view. It published a report this week which said there had been at least 15 land and air attacks on civilian centers in Darfur by government forces and affiliated militia. The death toll was put at 300. But Osman Kibir, the "walid" or governor of northern Darfur, insisted that security was improving and that the refugee population was falling. He directly contradicted John Holmes, the UN's undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, who visited Darfur last week and concluded that civilians were still being displaced by attacks. Speaking at his spacious compound in Fasher as his pet deer grazed on the lawn, Kibir said: "Quite frankly, the number of displaced people is reducing and some are going back to the areas they were displaced from. Those who talk about an increase must have an ulterior motive, because it's not true." Again, this puts him at odds with the UN. Across town at the organization's office, they say there has been "no significant reduction" in the influx of refugees. Abu Chok sprawls across the floor of a dried-up river. Some houses are made of low mud brick walls, but more are made of canvas and sticks. With winter temperatures of 39°F approaching, they look flimsy. There is no protection around the camp, leaving it exposed to attacks. The only protection is from occasional units of local blue-uniformed government police in armed trucks at the perimeter. Children are everywhere; playing in piles of rubbish or loitering in large groups. "I have been here for four years," said Idriss Muhammad, a tall man in long grubby robes. "I spend my days either here in the camp or walking to Fasher to try to find manual work." When he gets to the government town, what he finds is a stark contrast to the camp. The market is stocked with piles of fresh radishes, tomatoes, sugar cane, goat meat and even camel meat, a delicacy. There is also a hospital in the town. Not so in Abu Chock. "There is not enough food, and people don't have money," said a doctor in his small clinic at the camp. He has four medical assistants and on a busy day they see 300 patients in a surgery built from scaffolding and raffia. Many will never receive the treatment they need because, refugee or not, the hospital in town charges for investigations and treatments. "If they are very ill, we tell them they must go to the hospital," he said. "If they don't have any money, they won't go and, yes, they will probably die." Darfur reached international attention in 2003 when the Sudanese government decided to put down a rebellion in its western province by the Fur people and fellow African ethnic groups who were agitating for a better deal from Khartoum. The rebels and the local populations were targeted by the army and the Janjaweed. Bombings of civilian targets from the air were accompanied by raids in which the Janjaweed raped, tortured, stole livestock and burned down villages. In return, the rebels attacked Sudanese military placements, on one occasion destroying Antonov bombers and helicopter gunships at an Fasher airfield and killing at least 75 pilots, troops and technicians. In an attack north of Kutum, a unit of the Sudanese Liberation Army killed 500 members of a Sudanese battalion. What started as a united rebel front has splintered into around 30 rebel groups, making negotiations almost impossible. Colonel John Ochai is a commander in the African Union peacekeeping army in northern Darfur; his frustrations are self-evident: he neither has the right equipment or enough troops to protect the thousands of refugees in the area. He described how European governments, including Britain, had ignored a request for 18 attack helicopters to defend civilians from rebel and government-backed raids. The ones they need are thought to be in Iraq. He admits the equipment he relies on, supplied by governments such as Canada and the US, is "grossly inadequate". There's no cash for his dispirited troops either; subsistence allowances have not been paid to his soldiers since August. Next month the UN is due to respond to what it has described as the world's worst humanitarian disaster with a joint army of 20,000 to reinforce the African Union's 6,000 soldiers in Darfur. But a total force of just 9,000 will be ready in time and arrangements are "way, way behind schedule," said Ochai. Since January the peacekeepers have verified 271 attacks on civilians and refugees and 51 attacks on charity workers from organizations such as Oxfam and the Red Cross. Eighty-three vehicles belonging to international organizations were hijacked, including nine from his troops. There were 32 rape cases, a figure which is "grossly under-reported" because it results in the woman being ostracized. Khartoum has been accused of hampering efforts to improve security for the refugees by banning helicopter sorties after 6pm, when many attacks take place. Vital military equipment for the peacekeepers has been held up at Sudanese ports. A delegation of British parliamentarians, led by Lord Steel, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats and Michael Howard, the former Tory party leader, flew to Sudan this week to press Bashir to respond to the serious allegations. "His answers were unsatisfactory," said Howard. "[He] gave no good reason why he is blocking the involvement of Swedish and Norwegian advanced engineering battalions in the combined UN and African Union force. "It is clear the Sudanese government is deliberately hampering the ability of the peacekeepers to safeguard the security of the refugees."