March 17, 2008 | Read Time: 1 minute
Four years after many charities started providing aid in Sudan’s Darfur region, can the relief effort really be sustained? And what can be done to help humanitarian workers, who face burnout, harassment by government officials, and violence?
So asks Samuel Worthington, president of Interaction, following a visit to Sudan last month. Mr. Worthington writes on the organization’s Web site that every international nonprofit group he spoke to in El Fasher, a town in Darfur, has been attacked in some way.
“Stories of mock executions or even a real execution at the hand of rebels, evacuations, beatings, and death threats now form very poignant memories among the humanitarian community,” he says. “The fear of yet another carjacking at gunpoint is a real concern. Every agency has lost a vehicle, with drivers either hurt or left to walk back into town.”
“What brings NGO aid workers down is not the hardship (there are harsher places to work) but the endless obstacles for them to do their work.,” he says. “Every movement of NGO expatriate staff is regulated and limited by government controls. Their space to work, the ‘humanitarian space’ that enables a group of people to care for others within a war zone, is getting smaller.”
Still, Mr. Worthington says that the accomplishments of charities over the last four years have been “amazing,” with organizations helping to house, feed, educate, and counsel hundreds of thousands of people who’ve been forced out of their homes. “Unfortunately,” he says, “it’s reality that is not sustainable.”
What do you think? Are there ways to reduce security risks against aid workers such as those in Darfur? Is the relief effort unsustainable? What more can be done to help aid workers deal with the challenges they face?
