Left Behind: Yida

        We're going to be starting a new bi-weekly feature entitled "Left Behind." We'll be focusing on a specific refugee camp and the people that live there. The number of refugees gets larger and larger every day, yet the amount of aid allocated to caring for them gets smaller and smaller. It's important that we don't forget these people who have had to leave everything they've known behind.Through these posts, we hope to educate our readers on what being a refugee entails and spur you guys to get involved with the refugees in your community and throughout the world.

     




  Our first entry is about Yida refugee camp located in South Sudan. According to the wall street journal, it's the 7th most populous refugee camp in the world with about 69,500 Sudanese refugees inhabiting this makeshift settlement. National Geographic stated that in 2010 Sudan produced the 4th largest number of refugees in the world, but those that live in Yida only make up a fraction of the number of Sudanese people that inhabit refugee camps all over Africa!

Cause

      What is causing hundreds of thousands of Sudanese people to flee their homes? It all dates back a little over 20 years ago to when General Omar Bashir took control of the Sudanese government in a military coup. This allowed his radical party, the National Islamic Front,  to acquire power and wreak havoc on the, mostly Christian, Sudanese tribes. They inflamed old tribal tensions, and armed the Muslim-radical nomads living in Sudan with weapons that were used to destroy and pillage thousands of Christian villages in southern Sudan. In 2003, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) were formed mostly by Christian Sudanese farmers in order to protect the farming population from the attacks of the Muslim extremists and the government. However, the government retaliated by creating a radical Muslim militia, Janjaweed, to quash the uprising of the SLA and JEM. The resulting genocide in Darfur was the Janjaweed massacring Sudanese Christians in Darfur and throughout Sudan. This massacre began over 10 years ago, yet the Sudanese people are still feeling the effects to this day. Despite the creation of the Nation of South Sudan in 2011 as a refuge for these Sudanese Christians, the Janjaweed continues to threaten the lives of the South Sudanese Christians forcing them to flee Sudan or inhabit refugee camps, like Yida, that have sprang up out of necessity.

       A Glimpse of Yida

     Words cannot accurately describe the situation of the thousands of Sudanese people that call Yida refugee camp their "home." There is no running water, no form of sanitation, no health or education system, and that's just the beginning. The inhabitants of Yida rely on outside aid for food, medicine, clothing, and other basic necessities, and the funding for this aid gets smaller and smaller every day while the number of inhabitants in Yida gets larger every day. There is no formal housing, so people sleep in whatever makeshift tent they can craft. Imagine not knowing where half of your family is, not knowing when your next meal will come, and you not knowing if you will ever make it out of this grass-less field to a safe home. Malaria, diarrhea, chronic malnutrition, and other diseases plague Yida and kill thousands. This is no place to bring up a family, and it's imperative that we help those that can't help themselves by giving them tangible aid and hope for a brighter future. A Glimpse of Life in Yida camp, South Sudan (click here for another video)

IHL and Yida

      A major problem that people in Yida face is the fact that they are not covered under IHL refugee law because they are internally displaced persons. Another issue is the fact that the Janjaweed and National Islamic Front have not agreed to abide by IHL guidelines. The only group to explicitly state that they will abide by IHL guidelines is JEM. Both sides, the Janjaweed and JEM/SLA, have committed crimes that violate IHL, yet due to rampant corruption, it is very hard to pinpoint and try the people that are guilty of those crimes. The factor inhibiting the implementation of IHL and proper accountability, is the fact that very few, if any, countries in Africa recognize IHL and abide by its rules. Humanitarian crimes stem from deeply rooted tribal conflicts, and it is nearly impossible, for IHL to be implemented in such a "tribal focused" continent. The first step that needs to be taken is to strengthen the African Union and establish it as a legitimate ruling body, which would then give it the power to implement and enforce IHL throughout the continent. That proves to be a tremendous feat that has had little progress. However, it is important that we do not stop trying to enforce IHL and do not stop lobbying for IHL to extend its refugee protection to internally displaced persons.


Moyo Ajepe

Sources:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323932604579052742703621858

http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/maps/mapping-displaced-people-around-the-world/?ar_a=1

http://reliefweb.int/report/sudan/sudan-ihl-resource-page-darfur

http://data.unhcr.org/SouthSudan/settlement.php?id=34&country=251&region=26

http://www.unitedhumanrights.org/genocide/genocide-in-sudan.htm
http://allafrica.com/stories/201303181663.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XxbCzLUj2o
http://www.visualnews.com/2013/10/images-yida-refugee-camp-south-sudan/