Jamam refugee camp now has 35,000 people in it. You can really see it; there are people everywhere. And more are predicted to come. I heard a figure of 75,000 more. Yikes.
People are still fleeing violence along the border region between South Sudan and Sudan. Fighting continues on the ground between SPLA (South) and SAF (North) in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states of Sudan. Soldiers are moving up and down, getting in position to best defend their territory.
A good snapshot of things in the country generally is here:
There is a big, looming issue of returnees. A MoU between South Sudan and Sudan in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the two countries included an April 8th 2012 deadline for Southern Sudanese to choose between returning home from the Republic of Sudan or staying on in the north. It is estimated that around 500,000 South Sudanese are still residing in the Republic of Sudan, seven months after South Sudan declared independence. They will be required to leave the north upon the expiry of the deadline or regularize their stay. Out of that number, about 120,000 have already been registered by UNHCR and are ready to depart. So NGOs here are preparing for a huge influx. These people need places to stay while they travel back through South Sudan to their homes, and then assistance when they eventually resettle - land disputes will be a big problem, not to mention housing, water, food etc etc ... so far, the host communities have really borne the brunt of accommodating returnees.
Subsequently, Oxfam are preparing to 'scale up' and respond to these returnees and refugees big time. A lot of returnees aren't expected to come here to Jamam, but many will be coming through the Kosti way-station camp in the border town of Renk, where they wait for onward transport downstream. We have been responding here on a smaller-emergency scale, and were planning to hand over water & sanitation activities in the camp to a local partner; but the influx means we may go back in and really scale up. To complement this we also plan to set up a base in Melut, a town on the Nile which is the next port of call for returnees as they continue travelling downstream. This will be a strategic base for us, to allow us to respond in Renk (north of Melut) or here in Jamam (east). The scale-up is targeting 500,000 people. No mean feat. Which means bringing in a bucketload more staff and supplies in to Upper Nile state. Big planes and boats and stuff, to put it in technical terms.
Anyway, all that aside, here in Jamam things are still all systems go as we continue to provide assistance to refugees seeking safety from the fighting.
We are really struggling to get water. It's our biggest challenge. Our poor drillers have been extremely frustrated because wherever they've been drilling, they've not found water and the boreholes keep collapsing - the black cotton soil is really problematic. Even drilling to 90m hasn't yielded anything. And then our machinery keeps breaking down. Mud pumps are the main problem. We even got Nairobi to send one, and they sent us latrine pumps instead. Hopeless.
So our only option has been to truck water in. We've set up tanks along the road, or large water bladders, and set them up on plinths made of sandbags. From there we've connected the storages to tap stands for people to easily get water. Trucks are carrying water pumped from the borehole in our compound, which we've set up to run on a generator almost 24/7 to pump water into a 24,000L tank. But we haven't been able to keep up with demand, as we've only had trucks that can carry 6,000 L at a time - a miniscule amount. Even with 5 trucks now on the ground, they can only do a limited number of trips and deliver a limited amount of water each day.
But finally we've had some joy. Just this last week, we managed to get a couple of big water tanker trucks from the Adar oil company, which can carry 27,000L each. Which means we can deliver a bucket (truck?!) load more water than we could before! But the problem now is capacity of the boreholes in the vicinity; their yield is not high enough We are pumping water from a large borehole that was originally an oil exploration well, which has a huge yield; only problem is, it's about a 40 minute drive away from where we need the water delivered, which delays water delivery even further. So there's no easy answers to this. Nor is this a cheap exercise. But it's our only option at the moment.
Still, while drilling has been off-line, we've had a consultant in to do a geophysical survey of the hydrogeology so we can know the groundwater system better and target our drilling in areas where it's needed most. And it couldn't be more last minute - we are counting down until the rains come (which apparently start here in May), when drilling is almost impossible and everything gets muddy as hell.
A few other actors have now arrived too, with plans to drill boreholes. We really need their help. They need ours too, in the form of this geophysical survey and information we've collected on the ground - and in terms of coordinating all this drilling.
And in terms of the location of all this drilling, it's in 3 locations: the camps earmarked for refugees. UNHCR has demarcated two additional sites for the anticipated extra 75,000 people to settle. Currently we have 'Jamam 0' and 'Jamam 1'. Jamam 0 is so named because it's only a temporary site and will flood during the rainy season. But it's where a large number of refugees have settled after being trucked in by UNHCR from El Fuj, on the border. There are 35,000 people in Jamam 0 & 1.
Jamam 1, where the 'original' refugees first settled, has now been cleared of any major presence of unexploded ordinance (UXO)(cluster bombs, shells, grenades etc). So have Jamam 2 and 3. Now that this has officially happened, we can start constructing latrines and drilling boreholes in Jamam 1, and then move onto 2 and 3. Our main activities have to date focused on providing water and sanitation to people in Jamam 0. We've been prohibited from doing so in Jamam 1 by UNHCR, due to potential safety risks from UXO. Once there's water and sanitation facilities in Jamam 1, and it starts raining (!), its anticipated that people will move 'over the road' from Jamam 0. Fingers crossed.
So that's where we're at. A whole bunch of refugees and returnees are coming. So are a small army of Oxfam staff as part of this 'scale up'. I don't know how this will affect the long-term program - maybe there won't be one here at all. I hope not. We still need to consider the water & sanitation needs of people that have always lived here. Their needs are just as important.
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