unitex@rubbs.fidonet.org (unitex) (09/03/89)
SUDAN REFUGEES CLING TO SQUALID CAMPS (Reuter Library Report, August 30, 298 words, DATELINE: KHARTOUM) Sudanese police have pulled down and set ablaze scores of shacks in the past three days at the Zagalona refugee camp across the Nile from Khartoum. But refugees show no signs of obeying government orders to clear some of the 40-odd camps around the capital, foreign relief sources said on Wednesday. A million people have been driven to the Khartoum area by civil war and famine 1,000 miles (1,500 km) away in southern Sudan. "The refugees rebuild their shacks after each police raid," said a southern activist who lives in the Zagalona camp. "We shall not leave," a southernrefugee told Reuters. "If they resort to force we are prepared to die." Hundreds of displaced southerners, including many children, roam the capital in search of work and spend their nights on the streets. According to diplomatic sources, Western donors, have repeatedly offered funds to improve the squalid camps around Khartoum and Omdurman, its twin city across the river. They said authorities have consistently turned down the offer, asking that the money be used instead to settle refugees in farming areas away from the capital. According to the armed forces newspaper, Khartoum's governor, Brigadier Mohammed Osman Mohammed Said, has a plan which calls for the destruction of some camps and movement of their refugees to new sites to await return to the south. Foreign aid workers are concerned about the proposal, but have not been able to get details from the military junta which seized power two months ago. "Every time we raise the issue with government officials, we are told that the plan is not as Draconian as it may seem," the head of a major international aid agency told Reuters. The authorities have cut off water supplies to at least one Khartoum camp, relief sources said. * Origin: UNITEX --> Toward a United Species (1:107/501) --- Patt Haring | UNITEX : United Nations patth@sci.ccny.cuny.edu | Information patth@ccnysci.BITNET | Transfer Exchange -=- Every child smiles in the same language. -=-