What It's Like To Be Expelled From Darfur

Published March 19, 2009 @ 07:06PM PT

A friend just alerted to me a new blog on AlertNet written by an anonymous aid worker who was recently expelled from Darfur.

The first entry is titled The day they kicked us out of Sudan:

"Just a few months ago the government closed down the women's centres in the camp - where women who have suffered abuse could find support. But the women didn't give up. Last week they made plans to celebrate International Women's Day in the camp, and I promised I would be there to help them organise it. But I didn't even have the chance to say goodbye.

...

The hardest part was when our Sudanese colleagues came to our house to help us pack. We tried to say goodbye, but they refused to believe it - they kept saying, 'You will be able to come back in a few days.'

Government officials quickly arrived at the office, confiscating all our assets - our phones and computers to start with. A few staff were taken off by National Security officials for questioning. We didn't know what was going to happen to them."

To read the rest of the entry - get a sense of what it was actually like on the ground - please see here.

[Photo of a women's center in Darfur from the IRC photostream on Flickr]

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Author

Michael has worked for NGOs in Afghanistan, across east and central Africa, and Iraq. Prior to going overseas, he worked on a project providing assistance to the United Nations on the application of International Humanitarian Law to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.