Eastern Chad

In case you missed last weekend's commemoration of World Refugee Day, the video conferences that were streamed live from around the world on June 20 are now posted on YouTube. There were many memorable moments during the full 12 hours of exchanges that crisscrossed the world, and here are a couple of highlights.  

The World Refugee Day live video chat was a great success – check out the feed archived at our special page on the Darfur Dream Team Sister Schools website.  Enough co-founder John Prendergast joined in with some great points about the exciting Sister Schools program and about the experiences that led him to found the Enough Project.

John spoke with UNHCR’s Greg Millar and patched into the feed from his office in downtown Washington, D.C. John spoke about his experiences working in Africa over the past two decade and highlighted his 2007 trip to the Darfuri refugee camps in eastern Chad with NBA star Tracy McGrady. It was the conversations with mothers, fathers, and children in those camps that prompted Tracy and John to team up with UNHCR to launch the Darfur Dream Team Sister Schools program.

John also responded to some questions about the Obama administration’s work to improve the situation in Darfur and address countrywide challenges in Sudan today. He emphasized the importance of the work of activists in keeping Sudan on President Obama’s agenda, and he urged concerned citizens to stay engaged with the president and Congress so that our elected officials never forget that Americans expect them to take action to end the cycle of violence in Sudan.

John’s segment focused on how critical it is – at a time when the world faces numerous humanitarian challenges – to connect people around the world. “We won’t succeed as a global movement for peace unless everyone comes together,” he said. Social networking tools, just like those making UNHCR’s live event today possible, can be leveraged in very meaningful ways to raise awareness and connect individuals around the world. “So don’t be shy – that’s one big point I’d make,” John said.

The latest figures on the world’s displaced populations, released this week by the U.N. refugee agency, are difficult to grapple with: 42 million people forcibly uprooted from their homes.

The theme of this year’s World Refugee Day – “Real People, Real Needs” – emphasizes the human element that we might otherwise overlook as we think about displacement trends and find ourselves comparing the severity of one humanitarian crisis to another. Angelina Jolie, award-winning actress and prominent activist, astutely directed attention to the families and individuals grouped together under the unenviable classification ‘refugee.’

Numbers can illuminate, but they can also obscure. So I’m here today to say that refugees are not numbers. They’re not even just refugees; they are mothers and daughters, and fathers and sons. They are farmers, teachers, doctors, engineers. They are individuals, all. But most of all they are survivors, each one with a remarkable story that tells of resilience in the face of great loss.

Jolie was one of several high-profile advocates and officials who took part in UNHCR’s annual World Refugee Day event in Washington yesterday. (To hear Jolie's reflections on the remarkable people she has met through her work with UNHCR, click here.) She took the stage with U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, Sam Witten, the top U.S. State Department official on refugees and migration, and Khagendra and Ganga Baral, former refugees from Bhutan. NBC news anchor Ann Curry moderated the program.

Individual stories of survival featured prominently throughout the event, with a particular emphasis on redefining the way the world thinks about refugees. As countries around the world confront new concerns about national security, humanitarian space for the most vulnerable populations is disappearing, U.N. High Commissioner Guterres explained. Therefore, a conscious effort must be made to counter the impression that refugees and displaced people are a threat or a burden. People who are forced to flee their homes in order to survive become the most vulnerable people in the world and are therefore most deserving of attention and support. Jolie put this need for a shift in context:

As an American, I know the strength that diversity has given my country, a country built by what now some would dismiss as asylum seekers or economic migrants. And I believe that we must persuade the world that refugees must not be simply viewed as a burden; they are survivors, and they can bring those qualities to the service of their communities and the countries that shelter them.

This reality becomes evident as one hears directly from individuals about their plight. Via a live feed from the Djabal refugee camp in eastern Chad, a student from the Obama primary school had this to say to the audience gathered at the Washington commemoration: 

Rose Mapendo, the recipient of the Humanitarian of the Year award, which was presented at the event, offered a final emotional narrative of the hardships faced by refugees. In what began as a round of thanks to all those who helped her reach safety in the United States, Mapendo shared her harrowing story of spending 16 months in a Congolese death camp, where she saw her husband executed, and the long journey to the United States with her nine children. Mapendo is now the spokesperson for Mapendo International, which was founded in her honor to provide assistance to refugees who are in particularly vulnerable situations and have been overlooked by traditional refugee support programs.

Personalized accounts and stories of survival will feature prominently tomorrow, June 20 – World Refugee Day – at UNHCR’s culminating event that will be broadcast around the world in real-time.

Enough’s own Darfur Dream Team Sister Schools program will be highlighted in throughout the day, so keep an eye out for Sister Schools coordinator Stella Kenyi and Enough senior advisor Omer Ismail, who will be live from Djabal refugee camp in eastern Chad. Enough Co-founder John Prendergast, who just wrapped up a trip to Congo, will also patch into the conversation via a live video feed.

Enough has special coverage of the event and all of the World Refugee Day activities at Darfur Dream Team. Tune in tomorrow from 9a.m. to 9p.m. EST to watch and participate in live video conferences with people living in UNHCR camps from Chad, Kenya and Pakistan. You can join the conversation in the live chat room or by sending in video clips, text messages or Tweets. It is going to be a remarkable day of interaction across borders, languages, and cultures. Tune in and be part of the global show of support for the plight of refugees worldwide.

As Americans, we often hear about challenges Africans confront, but we don’t always understand what we can do to help. When I heard about the crisis in Darfur, I knew I had to get involved. In 2007, I decided to see firsthand how the conflict in Darfur was affecting its people. I traveled to eastern Chad with Enough Co-founder John Prendergast and Enough Policy Advisor Omer Ismail to find out what I could do to help. I was not prepared for what I experienced when I arrived.

I met with families who had been forced from their homes in Darfur by militias. They traveled for days, sometimes weeks, on foot to arrive at refugee camps across the border in Chad. I couldn’t help wondering, “What if our roles were reversed?” I asked many of the refugees I spoke with what I could do as an American, and they all asked for one thing: education. I was shocked to find that many of the camps did not have secondary schools, which are equivalent to high schools in America. For most Darfuris, education is the best path away from the suffering that has come to characterize their lives. In the camps in Chad, there is hope that educating the current generation will allow young people to lead a better community once they return home to Darfur. I met children who wanted to be president and have careers as doctors and teachers, but most immediately, all of the kids want to be students.

When I returned home, I knew something had to be done immediately to give the Darfuri refugee children the education that inspires their dreams. The Darfur Dream Team Sister Schools program seeks to improve the education of Darfuri students living in camps, through the construction and rehabilitation of school buildings, teacher training, and provision of sports equipment and other school supplies. By linking Darfuri refugee schools to schools in the United States through letter exchanges and video blogging, the Sister Schools program also fosters cross-cultural relationships and mutual understanding between American and Darfuri students. I am challenging students in American high schools to join together and help bring the gift of education to their peers in Darfuri refugee camps.

In honor of World Refugee Day this year, I am excited to announce that I’ve decided to cover the cost of operations for the Ocampo School in Djabal camp, one of 12 schools in eastern Chad that the Darfur Dream Team plans to support during the 2009-2010 school year. More than 30 American high schools, middle schools, and universities have also teamed up to raise the funds to support a second school. I’m thrilled to join all of these U.S. schools in the effort to raise money so that students in the Darfuri refugee camps will have better facilities, teachers, and more supplies.

I’ve also helped recruit some other NBA players to join the Darfur Dream Team. So far, Baron Davis, Derek Fisher, Luol Deng, Jermaine O’Neal, and Etan Thomas have all pledged their support, and the movement is growing. The combined efforts of contentious athletes and passionate students are creating a dynamic force for change in the camps in eastern Chad. Together, we can help improve the quality of education students receive, providing both hope for their future and a better life right now.

Tracy McGrady is a professional basketball player for the Houston Rockets. When Tracy and his traveling companions from the Enough Project returned from Chad in 2007, they hatched the idea for the Darfur Dream Team's Sister Schools program. Tracy’s journey to the Darfuri refugee camps in eastern Chad is chronicled in the movie 3 Points.

This morning, in honor of World Refugee Day, actress and Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie and CNN journalist Anderson Cooper will join the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres for the U.N. refugee agency’s annual public ceremony. The event will feature the story of a couple from Bhutan who were resettled in the United States after spending years in a refugee camp in eastern Nepal. Enough Co-founder John Prendergast and I will attend, and we’ll be sending live updates via Twitter. Follow us at EnoughProject or by using the hashtag #WorldRefugeeDay.

In honor of World Refugee Day, which will be commemorated on Saturday, June 20, the U.N. refugee agency will today release its annual report with the updated figures of displaced people worldwide. Enough will attend this morning’s briefing with U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, who will present UNHCR’s Global Trends report. Check out Enough's coverage of the briefing on Twitter at #WorldRefugeeDay.

The Global Trends report, compiled through the end of 2008, shows that there are 42 million uprooted people worldwide, including 16 million refugees and asylum seekers and 26 million internally displaced people (IDP).

While the total number reflects a drop of about 700,000 from 2007, UNHCR is quick to point out that conflict in the early part of 2009 has already offset this decline. U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres explained:

In 2009, we have already seen substantial new displacements, namely in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Somalia. While some displacements may be short-lived, others can take years and even decades to resolve. We continue to face several longer-term internal displacement situations in places like Colombia, Iraq, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Somalia. Each of these conflicts has also generated refugees who flee beyond their own borders.

The report indicates some other disturbing trends in regards to the countries in which Enough is engaged. Globally, UNHCR found that refugees and IDP returned home at a more infrequent rate than in past years, with refugee repatriation (604,000) falling 17 percent and IDP return (1.4 million) down 34 percent.  The deteriorating security situation in Sudan was one primary cause of this trend.

Though not traditionally part of UNHCR’s mandate, the refugee agency noted that it is becoming “increasingly involved” in addressing the plight of internally displaced people. As Guterres aptly stated:

Being forced from your home by conflict or persecution is a tragedy whether you’ve crossed an international border or not. Today, we are seeing a relentless series of internal conflicts that are generating millions of uprooted people. UNHCR is committed to working within the UN team and the broader humanitarian community to provide the internally displaced with the help they need, just as we do for refugees.

Enough’s focus countries fell near the top of the list of the world’s largest IDP populations. Sudan’s internally displaced population topped 2 million in the Darfur region alone. Renewed violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia recently forced many people from their homes, increasing the total number of IDPs in those countries to 1.5 million and 1.3 million respectively.

Despite the internal challenges and underdevelopment the country of Chad faces, it played host to one of the largest refugee populations – 330,500; Kenya was not far behind with 320,600 refugees. Somalia (561,000), Sudan (419,000), and Congo (368,000) were among the major refugee-producing countries in the world.

In the lead-up to World Refugee Day on Saturday, countries around the world are hosting commemoration events to remember the tens of millions of people worldwide who currently live uprooted from their homes.

Check Enough's special coverage of World Refugee for updates at Darfur Dream Team Sister Schools Program. 

We recently traveled to Djabal refugee camp in eastern Chad for the Darfur Dream Team’s Sister Schools Program. Djabal is one of two Darfuri refugee camps in southeastern Chad and is only accessible by plane or by unpaved roads. The six-hour commute from Abeche -- the central NGO-hub in the country -- makes Djabal a rare destination for most. We traveled to Djabal in order to develop video profiles of Darfuri students living in the camps. The students we met in Djabal were in primary school levels 3-6, the equivalent of 3rd through 6th grades in the United States.

Several internally displaced person (IDP) camps surround Djabal. The IDP camps are home to local Chadian groups who have been displaced from their villages due to inter-ethnic violence. From an aerial view, Djabal camp is organized in communal zones, but is quite spread out compared to other refugee camps. Although there is additional room available in Djabal, the refugees are prohibited by the local militias from cultivating the land or setting up other means to earn a livelihood.

With no opportunity for agricultural production, the Darfuri refugees living in eastern Chad are forced to explore other, sometimes dangerous, means of survival. Darfuri women, in particular, engage in the early morning ritual of collecting straw and firewood, despite being under threat of attack from local militias. Women who gather excess firewood often walk to the nearby town of Goz Beida in the hope of selling the wood and earning enough to purchase vegetables or meat.

Over 60 percent of the 20,000 refugees in Djabal camp are children. The camp currently has six primary schools, Obama, Ocampo, Sudan Djedid, Sultan Tadjadine, Ali Dinar A, and Ali Dinar B, which serve a total of 3,530 students. A shortage of teachers and safe buildings, as well as a lack of supplies make it difficult to give these children the education they desire. Through the Sister Schools Program, the Darfuri refugee children will finally have access to quality education. Below is a photo slideshow of Ali, one of the children we met in Djabal.

The authors are members of i-ACT, an advocacy organization that harnesses the power of video and the internet. As part of the Sister Schools Program, i-ACT will travel frequently to eastern Chad to set up the video connection between U.S. schools and the Darfuri refugee camps schools.

“Congo’s women have waited a very long time for the United States to notice the horror of rape in eastern Congo… We don’t want commemorations; we want you to act now.”

Addressing the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Wednesday afternoon, Congolese journalist Chouchou Namegabe Nabintu recounted horrific stories of rape committed against women and girls who have borne the brunt of violence in eastern Congo for nearly 12 years. The high incidence of violent rape has led to the characterization of the region as the deadliest place in the world for women and girls.
 
Chouchou was one of eight witnesses, notably among them Enough co-Founder John Prendergast and award-winning playwright Eve Ensler, who testified at a joint committee hearing titled, “Confronting Rape and Other Forms of Violence Against Women in Conflict Zones, Spotlight: DRC and Sudan.” The African affairs subcommittee, led by Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI), and a new subcommittee on global women’s issues, chaired by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), co-hosted the hearing. With expertise ranging from high-ranking Obama administration officials, leaders of humanitarian and human rights organizations, and activists – two of whom are natives of Sudan and Congo – the afternoon of testimony was both impassioned and substantive.

Despite the heartwrenching topic at hand, there was a palpable sense of optimism in the crowded hearing room, as the panelists and audience members, many of whom have devoted their careers to shining a light on the use of rape as a weapon of war in Congo and Darfur, seemed to find a ready advocate in Senator Boxer in particular.

The Honorable Melanne Verveer, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues, was the most prominent speaker of the first panel. In one particularly memorable exchange, Ambassador Verveer expressed support for the creation of a U.N. position dedicated to gender-based violence, but acknowledged that the U.N. is undergoing reforms and grappling with how to address global women’s issues as a whole.

But Senator Boxer underlined the urgency of the situation: “We don’t have time for the U.N. to get its act together. (…) We don’t have time because it is a shame on the human race.”

At the close of the first panel, Ambassador Verveer committed to convene the “necessary actors” to confront the rampant use of rape as a weapon of war, emphasizing that the president, First Lady Michelle Obama, and Secretary Clinton are concerned about the issue.

Visibly moved by the testimony, Senator Boxer thanked the first panelists and welcomed second panel with these words:

“I am so ashamed of the human race sometimes. I’m ashamed about not knowing enough…[I] pledge that me, this voice, is going to be heard.”

Throughout the second panel, Senator Boxer maintained this theme of personal concern and commitment to action. After hearing authoritative and sometimes emotional testimony from activists and humanitarian leaders about the root causes and responses to sexual violence in Congo and Darfur, Senator Boxer asked each witness to provide key recommendations to include in a letter to President Obama and Secretary Clinton that would focus on immediate and tangible actions.

Watch John Prendergast’s remarks:

In sum, the hearing placed necessary and overdue attention on the blight of rape as a weapon in two of the world’s most devastating conflicts. Between the powerful testimony of such expert witnesses and additional resources submitted for the record (like this written contribution from Human Rights Watch), the Senate is now armed with the tools and moral obligation to take action. We’ll be watching closely to see what happens next.

Here at Enough, we often swap emails with interesting articles and feature stories that we come across in our favorite publications and on our favorite websites. We wanted to share some of these stories with you as part of our effort to keep you up to date on what you need to know in the world of anti-genocide and crimes against humanity work

• Throughout the continuing showdown between the Sri Lanka army and the Tamil Tigers, Human Rights Watch has published regular photo slideshows and updates from local sources that paint a detailed and brutal picture of the horror civilians face at the epicenter of fighting. This week’s update includes satellite photos pinpointing mortar craters speckling the ‘no fire’ zone and narratives from civilians inside the zone.
• As the Sudanese government continues its attempts distract the international community, reports from within Darfur have become increasingly rare as the Sudanese government seeks to more closely monitor the comings and goings of outsiders. But this alJazeera clip is valuable not only for the rare glimpse it gives of the conditions in Zam Zam camp in north Darfur; it also provides a solid overview of more recent challenges – such as dwindling food and medical aid and the constant influx of new arrivals – the residents face as peace remains out of reach.

• A recent post on the Making Sense of Darfur blog makes some interesting speculations about why Khartoum recently decided to shuffle eight of its cabinet ministers, most notably assigning wanted war criminal Ahmed Haroun to the high-profile, high-stakes post of governor of South Kordofan, a state located on the contentious border between northern and southern Sudan.
• In his weekly blog post, scholar Gerard Prunier reports on the recent attempt by Chadian rebels, with the backing of Sudanese President Omar al Bashir, to overthrow Chadian President Idriss Deby. Prunier highlights the history of tribal and political allegiances that has left President Deby fighting off three years of coup attempts. As Prunier explains, this history figured prominently into the thinking that prompted Sudanese President Omar al Bashir to support this most recent coup attempt, despite the fact that Bashir should be on his best behavior for the African Union, which backed him up when the International Criminal Court issued calls for his arrest.
• And, from Foreign Policy this week, a Q&A with Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai on the challenges facing his country, what it’s like to work side-by-side with his avowed enemy, and why foreign governments should support the unity government. A key quote from Prime Minister Tsvangirai: “My beef with all the international community and diplomats is that, look, those of us who are pushing the democratic reform agenda should be supported so that we can sustain this experiment.”

 Maggie Fick contributed to this post.