01/23/2004

Field Representative Veronica Zeitlin assessed the humanitarian situation in the Casamance region of Senegal in December.  

“At night, we slept like rats pressed together, it was so crowded,” Mamadou, a native of the Casamance region of Senegal, tells Refugees International as he describes his experience in a refugee camp in The Gambia during the Senegalese civil war.  After Mamadou’s home village, Kafountine, was attacked by the Senegalese military 12 years ago, he and his family fled to The Gambia.  “The military beat us and burned down our houses,” he describes.  

Mamadou tells RI that when he and his family first arrived in The Gambia, Gambian government officials offered them food and sheets.  However, he adds, for most of the first two years there, his family received no regular assistance.  Luckily, during this period he was able to locate some family members in The Gambia and his family moved in with them.

After two years, The Gambian government established a refugee camp with UNHCR funding.  Mamadou and his family were given a place to live at the camp and some food assistance from the Red Cross from time to time.  “One month we would receive food,” he said, “and the next month we wouldn’t receive any.”  After two and a half years in the refugee camp, both UNHCR and the Red Cross cut off all aid to the camp.  Slowly the families began to leave, with Mamadou and his family moving back in with their Gambian relatives.  

Because word spread that the 21-year civil war in Casamance was ending, six months ago Mamadou and his family moved back to Kafountine.  While he is glad to be back in his own village, conditions are difficult.  Because he rented, rather than owning, land in Kafountine before the war, Mamadou must pay to rent land there again. Without a steady income, however, he cannot afford to rent land.  A neighbor has lent him a small plot on which he has harvested peanuts, which he is selling to support his family.  

Mamadou says that even if he could afford land, he would not be able to afford farming equipment to plant crops.  He has slowly begun to rehabilitate what is left of the house he abandoned 12 years ago.  He takes RI to the side of his house, revealing crumbling mud walls and hanging debris surrounding a gaping hole.

Despite the difficulties he is facing, Mamadou tells RI he is glad to be home to see other village members again.  As four young children suddenly approach his house, Mamadou smiles and stands to greet them, explaining to RI that they are his children returning from school.  While rebuilding a life is a challenge in Kafountine, unlike many villages abandoned during the war, this village has the advantage of already having a school in place for returning refugee and internally displaced children.

In contrast to Mamadou, Falla remains displaced from his home village. Sitting in a squat wooden chair in front of his mud home in Oussoye, a village in the Casamance region of Senegal where he has been displaced since 1990, Falla tells RI of his desire to return to his home village of Karem.  Falla was forced to flee Karem when the Senegalese army attacked the village during the civil war, burning more than 200 houses and killing some residents.

Falla describes how two of his family members suffered psychological trauma after having been displaced from Karem.  His wife, he recounts, had a recurring dream every night for two years.  She dreamed that she was in her own village, harvesting rice to bring to Oussoye.  The dream left her distressed and agitated.  Most of the time, she was unable to work or do anything.  Finally, after two years in this state, she died.

Falla’s son, Ibrahim, suffered trauma as well.  Falla tells RI that soon after arriving in Oussoye, Ibrahim thought he saw someone standing by a tree, down near the village port.  Since that day, every morning for the last 13 years, Ibrahim goes to sit by that same tree until evening, waiting for the person he believes he saw to return.

Falla now longs to return to Karem.  He says he is 100% certain that peace is near and he is not afraid to live in his home village.  He cannot return, however, because there are landmines in Karem and along the roads leading to it.  He still hopes one day to reclaim his own land there and cultivate it.  

Finding food for his family in Oussoye, Falla tells RI, is a daily challenge.  Because there is not enough land in Oussoye for displaced people to cultivate their own plots, Falla must gather wild fruits from the surrounding forest areas to sell to support his family.  He explains to RI that this brings in very little income.  Every so often, he receives rice from the government or a local relief organization. Last month, his family received 25 kilos of rice, a one-month supply, from a local organization called AJEDO.  

If he could cultivate his own land in his home village, Falla believes he could provide adequately for his family.  Although Falla has been in Oussoye for 13 years, he tells RI that he still feels like a stranger. “I am not at peace here,” he says, “I am not home.”