It is pitch black; the sun has not yet risen, but Achta Abakar Ibrahim is kneeling outside her straw home in Djabal refugee camp in southeastern Chad, praying to God.
She thanks Him that she escaped war in Sudan and that she and her family are now safe in Chad. She thanks Him that the Chadian people have welcomed her so openly and that humanitarian workers have helped her build a temporary life.
She still has scars on her back from the beatings she received while pregnant, by armed men she calls `janjaweed', who stormed her village in western Sudan, burning homes, killing men and raping women.
"Until now, I do not have peace of mind," she told IRIN in January, in a small sand yard outside her straw hut. "I think what happened will happen again, even at the level of the [refugee] camps."
According to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), which currently provides psycho-social support to some of the 250,000 Darfur refugees in Chad, trauma is a common problem.
"They talked about nightmares, about not being able to sleep, about hearing the bomber planes, about the orphans they found along the way from Sudan," said Rachel Zelon, former vice president of programme operations, who worked in Chad in 2004 when most Sudanese refugees arrived.
Four years later, the trauma continues, but in a different form. Julie Grier worked with the refugees early this year, as head of HIAS's team in the southeastern Chadian town of Goz Beida, the main town outside Djabal refugee camp.
"To realize that you have probably left your home forever is difficult," she told IRIN. "It's almost a trauma in itself.
"To realize that you are indefinitely going to have to rely on the assistance of other people can be disempowering, discouraging," she added, referring to a process of "learned helplessness" or unlearning how to help yourself.
 Photo: Heba Aly/IRIN  |
| Khadija Saboun, 2, drinks a flour-based soup - a staple for Chadians - at her home in the town of Goz Beida in southeastern Chad |
But despite these feelings, Abakar says she has much to be grateful for.
Her children never went to school in their home village of Tandoussa in Sudan - their father did not see it as a priority. Now they do, as is their right as international refugees. Those too young for school go to the nursery. Those too old have the option of literacy classes.
In their home villages, some Sudanese used to walk kilometres for unclean water, aid workers said. Now, clean water is just five minutes away in a public fountain constructed for the refugees.
Abakar used to pay every time she went to a hospital in Sudan, where "traditional doctors" were often part of the treatment. Now, when her children fall sick, she takes them to the free heath care clinic in the camp. And every month, she is guaranteed a ration of flour, oil, salt and sugar.
"I feel I am living in dignity," Abakar said. "The children go to school; they play with balls; they have fun; they have access to water. I thank God."
Work to be done
It is not a life of luxury, but in terms of access to services, it is one she never had before - even before the fighting broke out in her native Darfur - and one that many of the Chadians who are hosting Sudanese refugees still do not have.
"We cannot say that [the refugees] are living in a beautiful world. The place where they came from is where they belong. We can only wish them security to go back," Stéphane Godin told IRIN in January, when he was head of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Goz Beida. "[But] now they have classrooms, teachers, health posts on site. They have access to services most of them never had before," he told IRIN.
 We cannot say that the refugees are living in a beautiful world. The place where they came from is where they belong. We only wish them security to go back... |
He takes IRIN to his home: a sand patch, a big hut made of millet straw, and a few hot logs that serve as a stove. His siblings drink a flour-based soup.
"It's not that the refugees have too much," Serge Malé, head of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Chad, recently told IRIN. "It's that some around them… find themselves receiving a level of support… which is not within the internationally accepted standards."
"There is still a lot of work to be done for their countries [Chad and Sudan] in normal living conditions," UNICEF's Godin said. "We're working on it. [But], it's always easier to gather money for emergency crises than for development projects."
The UNHCR's Malé said humanitarian agencies had "limited ability" to respond to what he called a "valid call" from local populations to receive more support. "We have only partially been able to respond to their needs."
Local people do have access to the health care and the schools set up for the displaced Chadians and Sudanese refugees. They do not, however, receive any food, despite having shared some of their fields with the new arrivals, reducing their own cereal production.
"It made some people very vulnerable and needy," Khazin Hassan, head of one of the local villages, Koubigou, told IRIN. "If we're upset, it's not with the displaced people. It's with the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) who promised that we would share [in the assistance] with the displaced people."
Even then, despite the gap in assistance, Malé said refugees are not receiving as much as they should. "We probably never do enough."
Sudanese refugees have very limited means to meet their own needs and are, therefore, reliant on external aid. Only an estimated quarter of Sudanese refugees in Chad receive some kind of outside income to reduce their complete dependency on aid, Malé said, adding that the volatile security environment and lack of resources have been the major constraints to a more developmental approach.
"With knowledge the world can change"
Abakar has adapted to life in Chad: she spends her days at the market, buying and reselling tomatoes for some extra cash. She is also part of a women's cooperative, which, thanks to a loan from an NGO called Shora, buys food during the harvest season, stocks it, and resells it during the dry season.
 Photo: Anna Koblanck/IRIN |
| Oure Cassoni refugee camp on the Darfur border |
Still, Abakar said the refugee experience has changed her, in many ways, for the better.
"I am aware now. If I am sick, I go to the hospital. I don't stay home."
Grier said refugees have also become more aware of issues surrounding gender-based violence. "It's a slow change, and I don't think it's completely permeated yet, but you can see small differences," Grier said.
Abakar added: "We didn't know the benefit of education, but here we found out. We realised that he who is educated can change his life.
"With knowledge, the world can change."
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This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
