Home Sweet Home?

For many of us, home is a place of comfort, security, and belonging. However, for thousands of Sudanese refugees, home is now “makeshift shelters made of sticks and cloth”.

South of Khartoum, the Sudanese government has inexcusably destroyed thousands of homes in a reorganization effort to make camps for internally displaced persons more “habitable”.

The affected IDPs have been left to gather meager odds and ends in an attempt to construct some form of an adequate dwelling.

The words of one refugee say it all – “I had a house – with a door and key. Now, we are staying in the desert. We are worried about fires, sickness, criminals…If there is a fire, not one child will survive. The houses burn easily”.

Local officials continue to express their belief that the reorganization is in the best interests of residents. It would not surprise me if such statements were made in the confines of their own homes, safe and sound.