Ross Duffy doesn’t mince his words. “Unprecedented consequences” await Darfur’s people, predicts Medecins Sans Frontieres’ Ireland chief, following the ejection of over 10 aid agencies from Sudan last week.
Duffy, who hails from Dun Laoghaire and is scheduled to take over as MSF’s head of mission in Darfur this May, told Metro Éireann: “This action by the Sudanese authorities has unprecedented consequences for the people of Darfur.
“There’s a huge void that’s been left by the expulsion of MSF sections and a number of other NGOs. It’s going to have a devastating impact on the health and well-being of the population. Effectively they are being held hostage to a political and judicial agenda. We’re just actually outraged and appalled and calling on the government to repeal their decision.”
The move by the Sudanese government in expelling more than 10 agencies came shortly after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the conflict in Darfur.
Duffy agrees that last week’s sequence of events are obviously interconnected.
“The announcement by the ICC to indict Omar al Bashir… that decision came out on Wednesday midday. In the afternoon on Wednesday we [MSF] were summonsed to meet the authorities and presented with a letter which effectively expelled us from the country. So there was a very short space of time between the announcement and being expelled,” he confirmed.
Duffy first worked in Darfur in 2004, returning in 2007 with MSF. He says the work the medical organisation does is literally life-saving.
“It was a huge operation we had and in total we treat around 500,000 patients in the areas we work,” he said. However, this “all changed” following the expulsion of MSF Holland and MSF France. Only MSF Belgium remains, for now.
Duffy explains the significance of these MSF departures in simple, stark terms.
“On Thursday, 500,000 people no longer had access to healthcare that they had the previous day,” he says. “The situation in the camps is bad, and now we see a meningitis outbreak which will spread extremely quickly if it’s not treated.
“We were putting plans together to do a mass meningitis vaccination programme… that has all obviously stopped. There will be no vaccination programme to prevent the spread of meningitis, and there is no other organisation that has the capacity or ability to do this.”
The conflict in Darfur, in western Sudan, principally involves the Sudanese military and government-backed militia fighting a variety of rebel groups.
Drought and overpopulation are the root origins of a war that has taken hundreds of thousands of lives, and displaced millions.
For further information on the Darfur crisis visit www.msf.ie
