Sudanese human rights activists are urging the international communityto prepare for the mass movement of internally displaced people inDarfur as critical aid starts to give out. They say the expulsion of13 leading non-governmental organizations by Sudanese President OmarAl-Bashir is already having a serious impact and they fear people inDarfur will flee to other places in search of help.
Sudanese human rights activistsare in Geneva appealing to the UN Human Rights Council and to variousU.N. aid agencies to help millions of people in Darfur whose verysurvival is at stake.
They say 50 percent of the assistanceinternally displaced people in camps receive is provided by the 13private agencies. They say the United Nations complex humanitarianoperation in this conflict-ridden province cannot function efficientlywithout their help.
Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir expelledthe agencies earlier this month following his indictment by theInternational Criminal Court for alleged war crimes.
MahmoudBraima represents the Washington-based Darfur Association of the UnitedStates. He tells VOA, 2.7 million displaced people in Darfur will beimmediately affected by the expulsions and at least 4.7 million peoplewill be indirectly affected in the long run.
He says food andwater will soon run out. And, he warns there will be outbreaks ofdiseases such as diarrhea, meningitis and malaria once the rainy seasonstarts in a couple of months.
"We also think that people aregoing to start moving again," said Braima. "There is going to be a needfor resources and they are going to move where they think or at leastperceive there are more resources available to them."
"That means thatthey are going to move internally, particularly to other States withinthe Sudan or across the border to the neighboring countries,particularly Chad, Central African Republic. These two will be seeinga new wave of refugees," he added.
Braima says the Sudanese governmentwill not be able to fill the gap left by the expelled aid agencies. Hesays the government does not want the West to provide aid in Darfur andwants to throw the remaining NGO's out of Darfur by the end of theyear.
"So, we think this is going to create a very diresituation where some of us might think of it as genocide by other meansrather than by bullets - killing these people slowly throughstarvation, disease and lack of sanitation," said Briaima.
Braimasays the international community must prepare for a mass exodus ofrefugees from Darfur by pre-positioning aid in Chad, the CentralAfrican Republic and areas within Sudan where people are likely to go.
He says having relief supplies on hand will help alleviatesome of the suffering experienced by people forced to flee their homes.