Mercy Corps is working to improve conditions
for nearly 90,000 Sudanese living in three refugee camps across Darfur,
a region roughly the size of France where more than 2 million people have
fled their homes as a result of fighting.
Jan Pronk, the UN's Special Representative
for Darfur, visited Zalingei on June 2 to review the conditions of some
60,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Zalingei's four camps. Mercy
Corps is working to improve living conditions in two of these camps, Hessa-Hissa
and Hamidiya, by implementing water and sanitation, hygiene, protection
and children's psycho-social programs.
During his visit, Pronk met with representatives from Mercy Corps and other international relief agencies in Darfur and outlined his desire to see more attention paid to host populations and to shift from relief to development strategies. He expressed optimism that the structural changes underway now could lead to peace, citing the tripling of the size of the African Union monitoring program, the implementation of the north-south peace agreement and the resumption of the Darfur talks on June 10.
Mercy Corps is poised to begin providing education supplies and services to 14,000 children, including rehabilitating three schools and constructing 180 temporary classrooms, and continues to look for new and creative ways to meet the needs of families living in the camps. Your generous gift will help us fulfill the needs of Darfur's most vulnerable residents.