Averting disaster in Darfur
| 31 May 2007
Armed with little more than a weathered clipboard and a bamboo cane, Abdullah is keeping children alive in Darfur.
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| Huddled around the remote town of Gereida, in south Darfur, over 100,000 people, many of whom are women and children, have been displaced to a dusty, rubbish-strewn camp.
Their number has increased eight-fold in the two-and-a-half years since the camp was opened as a steady stream of traumatised people poured out of the bush, fleeing violent armed clashes. | | | 
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| For now, the numbers have stabilised. But the spectre of fatal conditions like malnutrition constantly threatens the lives of the camp's children.
It's a reality Abdullah knows only too well. The tall, handsome 30 year-old is a father himself and was displaced by the troubles.
Every day Abdullah tours the camp in search of children who are at risk of malnutrition, as well as those he has referred for treatment, to check on their progress. There are 69 nutrition monitors like Abdullah keeping an eye on some 21,000 children under five years old in the camp.
Abdullah's first house call today is frail two-year-old Shima. She was accepted onto a therapeutic feeding programme run by the British and Australian Red Cross in the camp.
Hawa, Shima’s mother, listens intently as Abdullah reminds her that Shima must continue to eat the sachets of nutritious peanut-based paste she has been given if she is to recover. Abdullah coaxes Shima into the idea by playing with a packet of the 19 pence-a-day product. She is too young to understand that her life depends on it.
Monitoring
Abdullah’s clipboard contains all he needs to ensure Shima stays on track. He has a checklist of questions to complete that will reveal whether or not she has developed medical complications.
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 | | | He also keeps an eye on attendance records at the feeding centre. It is not uncommon for young children to be left alone at home as their mothers go out of the camp, sometimes for hours at a time, in search of wood and grass, missing vital health care appointments. In a culture where the women do this kind of work, there is invariably no choice.
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| Abdullah said: “The first thing I do every morning when I get here is to check that the children that are supposed to be at the feeding centre have left for their appointments. Then I check on home-based care cases like Shima, to see if they’re eating and making good progress. I also check on absentees to try and find out why mums have been missing their appointments.
“One in ten of the families in this part of the camp have a malnourished child,” he claims.
Progress
Abdullah completes his house call by studiously marking Shima’s progress on his checklist and reminding Hawa of the need for good hygiene and adequate weaning, the lack of which are often the causes of malnutrition in the camp.
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| Abdullah moves on to measure the height and arm circumference of other children in the neighbourhood – his cane bears notches denoting various heights. In this way, he can spot potential malnutrition cases and refer them immediately to the feeding centre for treatment. | | | 
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| This innovative, preventive outreach work, supported by three small satellite clinics that are dispersed throughout the vast camp, is helping the Red Cross keep what might otherwise be rampant malnutrition rates under control. | |
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