The irony of this story is so rich, I think I’ve suffered an overdose. The head of UN humanitarian aid says that Darfur refugees need to suck it up and stop expecting the UN to keep giving them handouts.
The U.N. humanitarian chief warned Tuesday that international aid for millions of Darfur residents can not go on indefinitely and said the Sudanese government and rebels must negotiate a solution that would allow the displaced to return home.
John Holmes made the comments as he visited Kalma camp, home to around 100,000 of the more than 2.5 million people displaced by fighting in the large region of western Sudan since 2003.
Earlier this month, Holmes appealed for $2.2 billion in donations to fund U.N. aid for Sudan, most of which would go to Darfur. The world body is providing food and other supplies not only to residents of camps but also to much of the remainder of Darfur’s 4.7 million population who still live in their homes.
Holmes said that while security in Darfur continues to deteriorate and people are still being displaced by violence, many cases are not emergencies because people are reasonably well settled in these camps.
“People are not dying of starvation,” he said. But “the problem is that people have been in camps for four or five years now,” he told reporters. “We need to find some solutions quickly so we don’t have to go on doing this indefinitely,” Holmes added.
After all, we don’t want to start another UNRWA, do we? These people aren’t Palestinians, so they can’t be fourth-generation refugees.
Yesterday, the UN commemorated 61 years of making Palestinians the only people in the world who can add Perpetual Refugee to their resume. But the Darfurians? Well, they have to come to grips with reality and find a solution to why they’re in refugee camps. Sure, there may be Islamic thugs ruling their country, burning down villages, raping, killing, and enslaving them. But hey, do they expect the UN to keep feeding and housing them forever?
Now, if only the Darfurians can convince the UN that Israel is really behind their problems. Then the UN would fund them indefinitely.
Thanks, Meryl. My birthday tomorrow is my…well, I keep subtracting my birth year from 2008 and getting an answer that can’t possibly be right. So I needed a laugh and this is a good one. I mean, perish the thought that people would be allowed to languish in refugee camps for decades when there is room for them to take up new lives elsewhere.
We can’t bring up the Jews who fled from Arab countries because: 1. They weren’t sent flying by Jews so they don’t count; and 2. It’s divisive to bring it up anyway.