Aisha and Zainep are sisters from Donkey Desera in south Darfur. In Donkey Desera, theirs was a farming family, with four donkeys, seven goats, and one hundred chickens.
They used to sell their goods at the local souk. One morning, they woke up to the sound of donkeys screaming. It was 5 am. They heard men enter the village on camels, they heard them setting fire to the houses and farms. They heard helicopters, they heard them dropping bombs. They heard gunfire, and they fled. They couldn’t see their attackers. They hid behind an abandoned well. There was nothing left of Donkey Desera.
Zainep walked to Nyala, capital of South Darfur with four of her children and two of her husbands’ nieces, but without her husband. The children were 5, 7, 10, 13, and 15 years old. They had no food or water. They all had diarrhea. They all were cold. They saw police along the way, but the police ignored them. They saw many burned out villages and dead people along the way. They walked like this for five days.
They arrived at an IDP camp to find just thirty-two others had made it there from Donkey Desera. Aisha made it to the camp later. They were releieved to be reunited. Donkey Desera had been a village of 500 people. There was nothing left of Donkey Desera. Remebering life in Donkey Desera, Zainap said, “I was full, I had everything I needed. Now we are hungry. Before the camp we were very, very hungry.”
When they arrived at the camp, they had nothing. Worldvision gave them clothes – one hand-out in 6 months. They each have 3 changes of clothes now. They all sleep in tents in the camp, on the floor. They each have a blanket, but no buckets, and no kerosene lamps. Aisha shares her tent with six children, and Zainep with three. There is not enough food in the camp, and the children are hungry. The sisters said that meat, milk and fruit are finished in the camp—for these, you must walk two hours to Nyala, you must buy them in the souk, you must have the money to buy them. To cook, you must have firewood, which you can also buy in the souk, but if you don’t have money you must go outside the camp and forage for wood. There is no wood left.
Aisha and Zainep won’t go home because they fear the janjaweed. They long to rebuild their lives, and to do so, they would need to feel safe, and they would need a donkey and a plough.
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