Amona to a clinic that is run by a medical charity and that deals with cases of severe malnutrition.
Amona was put on a drip to prevent dehydration and was fed intravenously through her nose. Her condition was serious.
Amona spent two months in the care of the clinic, and then returned to the supplementary feeding center. Her height-weight ratio was then 75 percent of what it should have been.
She was still malnourished, and she remained "at risk." In addition, she had a skin disease and muscle wasting. But Amona was beginning to recover.
At the feeding center Amona was registered: number 1838. She was just 63 centimeters high and weighed 4.7 kilograms.
The monitors then gave her mother, Awatif Abdu-Rahman, a bag of food for two weeks so that she could stay healthy, feed Amona with solids and, by eating the food herself, provide good breast milk for her daughter.
It was from a visiting health worker that Awatif had learned about the feeding center.
The visitor had come to the tiny shack Awatif calls "home" in a Darfur displaced persons camp. And when she saw the state of Amona, she told Awatif that she must take her daughter to the feeding center without delay.
"Amona was so ill that if the mother had not brought her to the feeding center, she would have died," said Hawa.
The Sudan Development Organization (SUDO) runs Bilel camp.
"I'm very grateful to SUDO, to the people who fund this center and to the people who work here," said Awatif. "They gave me a mosquito net and have given me extra food. If I had not come here, Amona could have died."
Two weeks later, after Amona and her mother had eaten the ground corn, soya bean, oil and sugar mix that they received at the center, Amona had gained 300 grams. Her weight was at five kilograms, but she had not grown any taller, and a measurement of the circumference of her upper arm showed that she was still "at risk."
Awatif, 30, has plenty to cope with. Her family lives in Sector J in Bilel camp, which houses 4,500 people. The camp lies just outside Nyala, the regional capital of South Darfur.
Their home is a "pen" about five feet square, with plastic sheeting for a roof and with very few cooking utensils or personal belongings.
The sun beats down mercilessly on the plastic in the summer, and the wind and sand blow around it in winter and during the dry season.
Awatif and her husband, Adam Osman, 35, have two other children, both boys: Sabir, 5, and Osman, 3. Osman suffers from polio and cannot use his legs well.
The family fled to Bilel 11 months ago from a village called Marla, east of the camp. They said there was an air raid on the village — and they were terrified.
"The planes started bombing our village. All of Marla was bombed. I saw my house on fire, and I ran away," said Awatif. "Then afterwards, some families returned to collect their property. But I didn't. We came here by donkey and slept on the way. There were about 30 all traveling together — many people. Some people did go back to try to collect their belongings. We just ran from the area."
Awatif has had no education, but since arriving at the camp, she has started to go to Arabic and Islam lessons in the afternoons provided in a community center by a psychosocial project also funded by ACT-Caritas. Neighbors look after her children while she attends the lessons.
She said she is grateful for the support she has received in the center as well as the opportunity to learn at her age.
Was she worried about the idea of going to school? "No, not at all," she said. "I was just excited."
In their operation across South and West Darfur, ACT-Caritas has saved the lives of numerous children like Amona while supporting mothers like Awatif.
Since the start of the ACT-Caritas relief program in June 2004, more than a quarter of a million children have been assisted: a total of 39,324 have been admitted to supplementary feeding centers like those in Bilel, and 23,584 have been discharged once they have put on sufficient weight.
The program has also admitted 250 severely malnourished children for therapeutic feeding and has discharged 228 of them.
Staff at the centers said they enjoy the work and seeing improvement in the children. "I know that in working here and helping babies like Amona, I'm serving the community, and I'm very pleased about this," said Hawa.
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance is participating in the Darfur response as a member of an international alliance of Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox aid organizations from the United States, Europe, and Sudan — ACT-Caritas. SUDO is a local ACT-Caritas implementing member. |
