Khartoum, 27-31 May 2007
INTERSOS RELATION
WEST DARFUR
INTERSOS has started its intervention in the Chad-Darfur crisis in 2004, initially with the setting up and the management of two camps in Chad, Goz Amir and Djabal, after, in the second half of 2004 with an intervention of the main area of returns in West Darfur of the refugee population hosted in the two camps, specifically in the area of Habila AU and Wadi Salih.
In West Darfur, Intersos has implemented projects focused, since the beginning, on a strict community based approach, mainly in partnership with UNHCR.
Our activities in West Darfur are localized in the villages of the whole area of Habila and Wadi Salih AU and therefore we can assume to have acquired through the years a accurate knowledge of the area and of the link among its past and present problems.
In this workshop we were asked to give a presentation of the environmental situation in West Darfur. As it is understandable, Intersos will furnish a vision centered on the heart of its activities. Above all we don't pretend to give a technical and scientific vision of the environmental situation. This would require an assessment much more accurate and scientific than is possible and profit to do in this center. Some studies have already been done with remarkable results, surely others will follow this in the near future.
What we want to give, as partner of UNHCR and as INGO with particular mandate for the intervention in the refugees crises, is to give a general vision of the environmental situation in connection with the theme of Protection.
Surely the focus on the environmental aspect of the refugee crisis is absolutely appropriate and important for the very specific Darfur situation.