I'm going back to Jamam next week. I'm a bit apprehensive about it to be honest; there are now 88 staff there working as part of the Oxfam 'scale up' for the Category 2 Emergency; in Jamam refugee camp there are around 32,000 people, and over 100,000 Sudanese refugees in Upper Nile state.
It's been 4 months since I
was there, and a lot has changed since then. There are permanent structures in
our compound instead of tents, three more refugee camps in the area, and a
bucketload more people fleeing fighting in Sudan. The place is under water from
the rain, there's mud everywhere, emergency latrines are overflowing and there
has been a suspected cholera outbreak. We are now awaiting the test results
from Nairobi (which are, relievingly, likely to be negative).
A new site has been designated for the refugees from Jamam, called Gendrassa. Oxfam are currently drilling boreholes there in preparation for moving the people. Our focus is now on this new site and making sure everything is in order for the first arrivals.
I cam across the article below on the Oxfam website. It is now 3 weeks since it was written, so it's a bit out of date, and it is very Oxfam-centric - there are many other organisations working there such as UNHCR, ACTED, Goal, MSF etc - but I think it gives a good basic overview of the situation on the ground. It's helping me to get up to speed on what's happening there, given I've been out of the loop for a few months while working with the team in Rumbek. Gendrassa is a new addition to the 'new' camp of Batil described below.
Options running out for 32,000
refugees in Jamam Camp – July 4, 2012
by Janna Hamilton, Oxfam GB journalist
The
situation in Jamam was already fragile, and is now critical. Conditions in the camp are the
perfect storm for an outbreak of cholera or other water-borne diseases. There
is simply not enough safe drinking water in the camp, and now the rainy season
has begun, families’ tents are flooded and pit latrines overflowing, causing a
dire health risk. As the rains get heavier disease is likely to spread. Oxfam
delivers water and sanitation all over the world and conditions here are as
difficult as it gets.
Every effort must be made by the local government in
Upper Nile, with strong leadership from UNHCR, to evacuate the 32,000 refugees from
Jamam to new sites, which are safe from flooding and where adequate safe
drinking water is available. The window is shrinking with which to relocate
refugees before the rains make roads impassable and flooding overwhelms Jamam
camp.
More than 35,000 new refugees crossed the border in May,
fleeing conflict and bombing in Blue Nile in Sudan, and more than 10,000 are
also expected to be on their way. A new site in Batil, 60kms from Jamam, is being
prepared to accommodate Oxfam has supported the drilling for water in the new
site.
While
we are doing all we can to prevent a cholera outbreak, continued coordination
between humanitarian organizations is vital to ensure we are all ready with
prepositioned stocks to respond as effectively as possible if an outbreak does
occur.
Oxfam
has 88 staff (68 national and 20 international) now in Jamam responding to the
refugee crisis.
Despite the challenges, Oxfam is:
o
Continuing
to drill for new water sources in Jamam camp, as well as in the new site in
Batil.
o
Building
latrines to prevent open defecation and spread of disease.
o
Spreading
vital hygiene messages to the refugee and host community on how to identify, treat and prevent the spread of
cholera and other waterborne diseases.
o
Stock-piling
emergency supplies of water purification equipment, rehydration salts and soap to
help contain the spread of cholera if an outbreak happens.
The
critical situation people are facing in the refugee camps is the human face of
conflict – although they may have fled the fighting, they continue to have to
suffer living in very desperate conditions. What these refugees need and
deserve is for the conflict in Blue Nile to immediately end and long-term peace
to be established, so they can go home in safety Refugees in Jamam want to go
home, but they need security to do so.
Overview
– Jamam Camp
Jamam
camp lies about 60 kilometres south-west of the Sudan-South Sudan border. About 32,000 refugees currently live in the camp. These refugees are from Blue Nile State in
Sudan where conflict broke out last year between the SPLM-N rebels and the
government of Sudan. Most of the refugees arrived in South Sudan in December
2011 – though most moved to Jamam in Jan/Feb 2012.
The
refugees in Jamam face extreme challenges. The area faces critical water
shortages, with very little groundwater available – not enough to support the
influx of people. With the arrival of the rains, the camp is flooding,
inundating tents and latrines, but this water is very unsafe to use is not
treated.
In
May, around 20,000 refugees were moved within Jamam camp away from their
initial place of spontaneous settlement on a flood plain. Areas that have not
flooded completely have been become extremely muddy and very difficult to live
in during the rains, as water tends to sit on the surface of the ground, a high
risk for both waterborne disease and malaria.
It is also now difficult to access inside the camp by vehicle and even
on the roads, water trucking will eventually become impossible.
As
a result, Oxfam has been calling for people to be relocated to a completely new
site where more water is available. Relocation started late and slowly in May, however,
so far only 4,000 of the original 37,000 in the camp have been moved to Doro
refugee camp. Further relocations stalled due to resources being diverted to deal
with new influx of refugees. Oxfam welcomes the latest commitment from UNHCR to
relocate the 32,000 refugees from Jamam refugee camp to a second site in Batil
and possibly a third new site. Every effort must be made by UNHCR to honour this
and to urgently prepare a realistic contingency plan for what to do if cholera
breaks, out or impassable roads, due to rains, prevent relocation.
There
are about 5,000 people living in Jamam village who also need access to the same
water sources. They have faced severe competition for resources, including
water, that were already rare, since the arrival of the refugees. Oxfam is
concerned tensions over competition for water is growing between the refugee
community and permanent residents.
Oxfam
has four operational boreholes that are located between one and 30 kilometers
away from the camp currently trucking into seven water tanks attached to tap
stands mostly positioned close to the road that runs through the camp. These
boreholes have been fitted with submersible pumps that pump almost 24 hours a
day so Oxfam can try to keep up with demand.
But with water being extracted at a very fast rate, the water they
provide is decreasing as ground water levels drop.
Oxfam
and other partners in the camp have been trying to drill for new boreholes to
supplement the existing ones. However
eleven new boreholes have not produced a significant new source of water: only
two produced any water at all and this was too little to make a meaningful
contribution to Jamam’s water needs, with one source no longer even providing
enough water for the hand pump initially installed.
Humanitarian
agencies have been trying to get larger rigs into the camp to try to drill
deeper but their arrival has faced many delays. One additional rig has arrived
and is in the process of drilling, but it is not as large a rig as initially
hoped for and may not be able to drill as deep as needed to find water. There’s
also a good chance that water deeper in the ground will be saline.
In
order to get the best chance of hitting water Oxfam has done a geological
survey of the area and has reviewed this survey again. The area is known to be
an especially difficult area to find good sources of ground water because
there’s little rock and below the surface is mostly clay that does not allow
water to flow through it.
However, progress has been
made with an additional borehole now available, increasing the average amount
of water available from 6 litres in April to 8 litres per person per day.
Questions
and answers
Why
are there such shortages? Why isn’t Oxfam providing more?
Water
has always been problematic in the Jamam area: Oxfam has been working with the
host community for three years and finding productive groundwater sources has
always been a challenge.
The
influx of tens of thousands of refugees into the area has put enormous pressure
on what little water there is available. Refugees continue to arrive and water
sources continue to be put under more pressure. The situation is now
critical. Oxfam and other NGOs have had teams of engineers and drilling
rigs trying to find more water, and carried out geological surveys, but there
is simply not enough available to meet the enormous needs.
Currently
the refugees receive between 7-9 litres per person per day – far below
international humanitarian standards of 15 litres per person per day. This is only achieved by the use of trucking
water into the camp from existing boreholes between 10-30 miles away, but rain is
now making the dirt roads very difficult and slow to navigate. Trucks are
getting stuck, delaying the urgent delivery of the limited water available to
the camp. Even using the trucks, only about 16,500 people could get 15 litres
per day, while there are around 37,000 people in Jamam in need of water, 5,000
host population and 32,000 refugees.
This
water has to be carefully managed and is only enough for cooking and drinking. In surveys performed by Oxfam, refugees report
having to make hard decisions, such as whether to use water for cooking or
bathing, a choice no one should have to make. Illness is common in the camp
because of a lack of water and the risk that this will get worse now the rains
have arrived is very high, especially in children and other vulnerable
populations.
2. If
there is so much rain, why is there still not enough water for the refugees?
Dues to the rains, there is now a lot of surface water
in the Jamam area, but when this water pools on the muddy ground it becomes
very unsafe for people to use for cooking and drinking. Hafirs (large ponds) in the camp have been a
source of water for refugees – although this water is very unsafe if not
treated and is likely to contain pathogens as cattle and goats also use the
haffirs. Oxfam has setup pumps, tanks and operators to treat this water as a
safe additional source of water for the population.
Oxfam is also providing rain water harvesting - where
people use plastic sheeting to collect rain water, and they then treat the water
with water purification tabs to make it safe for drinking.
3.
How
likely is a cholera outbreak in the refugee camp?
The situation in Jamam is the perfect storm for a
cholera outbreak. Extremely limited groundwater means people
can only access between
7-9 litres of safe, clean water each
day, but still only enough for cooking and drinking. While within emergency indicators,
this is far below the international humanitarian standard indicator of at least
15 litres per person per day.
The threat of cholera and other water borne diseases
such as diarrhea and malaria is very real during the rainy season when people
have a much higher risk of being infected by contaminated water sources. In
Jamam, however, there are simply not enough safe water sources available to
provide the recommended quantity to the 32,000 refugees to lower the risk of a
cholera outbreak. Over one and a half Olympic sized swimming
pools would be required every week for just the basic needs of the refugees. Moreover,
if an outbreak does occur, 40 litres of safe, clean water per person is
recommended to contain the spread of cholera within a family with a cholera
patient – which is simply not possible given the limited water available.
4.
What is Oxfam doing to prevent a cholera outbreak?
In Jamam there is simply not enough water available
to adequately reduce the risk of a cholera outbreak amongst the refugee
population, particularly in the rainy season when people will live close to
pools of contaminated water.
To help limit a cholera outbreak, Oxfam has started chlorinating
the water where possible it is delivering to the refugee community, and will
increase chlorination if an outbreak does occur.
Preventing the spread of cholera, if an outbreak
does occur, is straightforward: it requires good basic hygiene, like
hand-washing and only drinking clean water, but this becomes more difficult if
access to water and basic sanitation is limited. Oxfam is diffusing hygiene
messages to the Jamam refugee community and the host community nearby on how to
identify, treat and prevent the spread of the disease, especially dangerous to children and
other vulnerable members of the population.
In addition Oxfam is rapidly constructing adequate communal latrine
facilities.
This
involves hygiene messages on the importance of hand-washing, and using the safe
clean water they do have available for drinking and preparing food. Most of the
refugees have fled from rural areas and are not used to living in crowded camp
conditions where diseases can easily spread.
Oxfam, in partnership with
the other agencies, also has contingency plans in place for a cholera outbreak,
which includes:
·
Stock
piling water
treatment equipment and chemicals for emergency treatment of surface water such
as ponds and dams in case the borehole and pipeline system breaks down.
·
Contingency stock for emergency sanitation infrastructure - in the event
that we have to build elevated latrines in a flooded area.
·
Contingency stocks of chlorine and PUR (water purification) for
emergency water treatment, plus soap for hand-washing.
·
Designated areas reserved in the camp for oral rehydration points. These
are places where people know that they can go for rehydration when suffering
from diarrhoea.
5.
Are people showing signs of
waterborne disease yet?
Forty per cent of all patients treated
in Jamam’s health clinic were reported to be suffering from diarrhoea in June. (PLEASE NOTE this is not the same as 40 per
cent of the population having diarrhoea) As a comparison, the population
size in Doro and Jamam refugee camps are similar, and the number of cases of Acute Respiratory
Infection seen at both are about the same, however, the number of diarrhoea
cases is much higher in Jamam – a strong indicator of the impacts of limited
access to water and sanitation in Jamam camp.
Oxfam is disseminating hygiene messages to the Jamam
refugee community and the host community nearby on the importance of hand-washing, and using the safe
clean water they do have available for drinking and preparing food to prevent
waterborne diseases. In
addition, Oxfam has constructed nearly 1,000 communal latrine facilities –
however, the recent flooding has led to the collapse of more than 100 of these,
as no higher ground was available to construct the latrines in large parts of
the camps. Oxfam is extremely concerned with the increased heath risk this
brings.
6. Why was the camp established in a place with
too little water to sustain a refugee camp?
Refugees
fleeing the conflict in Blue Nile initially settled close to the Sudan – South
Sudan border, but moved to the Jamam area in December 2011 deeper into the
South in order to get them away from the conflict. The area was partially
selected because of the willingness of local chiefs and authorities to host the
refugees, but Oxfam has been warning for months of the urgent need to find a
more suitable site with better access to safe water.
However,
as more refugees have arrived in Jamam, Oxfam and other agencies have not been
able to source enough water to sustain them. The level of flooding that hit Jamam
after several days of heavy rain at the end of June has also exceeded our
previous expectations.
7. Oxfam
warned that 23,000 refugees needed to be relocated from Jamam to a new site
with a more reliable water supply before the rainy season, did this happen?
In
February and again in April, Oxfam sounded the warning that 23,000 refugees
needed to be urgently moved from Jamam to another location with a more reliable
water source, which would leave the remaining 16,500 refugees in Jamam with the
recommended 15 litres of water per person, per day. Unfortunately, just as the
relocation operation began in May, a new influx of 35,000 refugees arrived from
Blue Nile state to transit sites close to Jamam. As a result only 4000 people have been moved
from Jamam since resources were diverted to the urgent needs of the newly
arrived refugees.
We
support UNHCR’s decision, in light of flooding and limitations in safe water
supplies, to evacuate the entire population of Jamam, as soon as possible
before further flooding and disease outbreaks put the population at grave risk.
Oxfam urges that sufficient support, funding and expertise are deployed by all
agencies involved to a successful evacuation this takes place.
8. Why
have refugees not been relocated in time?
Setting
up a new camp, especially in a short timeframe is very challenging and
expensive. Government needs to allocate a site, and UNHCR needed to move the
refugees, and identify and fund partners to operate the camp.
It
takes time to identify an accessible site with adequate access to water in a
secure location. This needs to be approved by the Govt. authorities and
supported by the local community. Site
planning and setting up basic infrastructure also takes time. Moving up to two
thousand refugees a day is an enormous challenge – trucks, way stations,
security, food and water for the journey all need to be planned and
pre-positioned. Given that Upper Nile is caught between conflict zones in Blue
Nile and South Kordofan, it is also a challenge to identify a site that is a
safe distance from a border and in a secure location.
9. Why
has Oxfam been critical of the UNHCR response?
We
feel strongly that aid and UN agencies should work together to address the huge
challenges in Jamam. We have a firm commitment from the local government in
Upper Nile, with strong leadership from UNHCR, that the immediate evacuation will
begin of the 32,000 refugees from Jamam to new sites. Under incredibly
challenging conditions, thousands of men, women and children must be evacuated as
quickly and efficiently as possible, and this will require a focused coordination
and collaboration from all agencies.
10. Where
are the refugees now going to go?
Batil
has already received some 30,000 new arrivals from Blue Nile in the past month and
is close to capacity. A new camp called Batil 2 has been identified by UNHCR as
a suitable site for up to 15,000 people from Jamam – this is under development
now, and we hope that people can start moving there within the next few weeks. There
are variables outside of anyone’s control at this stage – how much rain will
affect the roads and how many new refugees may arrive. Even if this is
accomplished, it leaves nearly 20,000 refugees still in Jamam – and a third
site will need to be urgently identified and developed for this population.
11. What is Oxfam's concerns,
if any, with Batil?
Borehole
drilling in Batil has been successful over the last month, and at this stage
offers an viable location to resettle the ten of thousands in Jamam who are in
desperate need of safe drinking water. Batil
1 camp is close to capacity with the new influx having settled there. Batil 2
is going to be developed as a matter of priority and could take up to 15,000
refugees currently living in the flood plane in Jamam.
Oxfam is still concerned
about the need to prepare a third site for the remaining 18,000 people in Jamam
and support UNHCR in its efforts to find such a site urgently.
12. Does Batil have enough
water to meet international standards of 15 litres per day, per person?
At
this early stage, borehole drilling in Batil is showing very positive signs of
good ground water supply.
13. What will Oxfam be doing in
Batil?
Oxfam
has supported the drilling of boreholes in Batil with drilling rigs, staff,
borehole consumables and supplies for water distribution. We will continue to
support, as much as we can, the development of new water sources in Batil 2 and
any other site identified.
14. UNHCR said they would
relocate 16,000 in April, but didn't. Will this time be any
better?
The
recent flooding in Jamam has convinced all actors, including UNHCR, that Jamam
1 needs an "evacuation" rather than a "relocation". The risks
of a major health disaster have become obvious to all - and the response has
been unanimous and quick. We believe, and hope there is no going back on this
decision.
15. In the event there's a
cholera outbreak before a significant number of refugees are relocated, will
relocation stop?
Yes
- if there is a confirmed case of cholera in Jamam, it would be impossible and
unethical to continue moving refugees (who possibly carry the disease with
them) into another, unaffected population. Stock-piling emergency supplies of
water purification equipment, rehydration salts and soap to help contain the
spread of cholera if an outbreak happens is underway.
16. What
is the current situation in Blue Nile?
The
conflict in Blue Nile continues to force people to flee their homes. The latest
UN report indicated fighting in Blue Nile escalated during June, with the most
recent bombing reported on July 2. According to the FEWSNET early warning
system there is currently a food crisis in Blue Nile, caused in large part by
the conflict, displacement and poor harvest. Many of the refugees were farmers
who had to flee their villages in the middle of the planting and harvest
seasons. The price of staple foods such as sorghum has risen by 75 per cent
from this time last year. Ultimately the only sustainable solution to the
crisis is for a cessation of hostilities and a peace agreement in Blue Nile so
that people can go home.
* * *
So there it is. Gulp.
