Conditions bleak for newly displaced in Kalma camp, South Darfur

The rainy season is increasing the suffering of about 60,000 newly displaced people in Kalma camp near Nyala in South Darfur. One of the leaders of the newly displaced at the camp Osman Abdulrahman Abu Al Gasim told Radio Dabanga that the displaced are distributed across three centres. “Centre One accommodates 3,600, Centre Eight accommodates about 40,000, with 17,000 settled at Centre Five,” he said. “The heavy rains have deepened the difficulty of their humanitarian condition, so there are severe shortages of food, shelter and a deterioration of health services,” he said. “There has been widespread criticism of the humanitarian organizations operating here,” he said, describing their work as “superficial”. “They provide no service or aid other than just registering names on papers,” Al Gasim lamented, appealing to international humanitarian organisations to provide “real humanitarian aid; both the old and the new displaced are dependent on it,” he said. File photo (UN/Olivier Chassot)