PHOTO GALLERY
Sania Adam Bahar, 33, has been living at Otash camp just outside Nyala, south Darfur, since October, when Janjaweed raiders encircled her village and started burning the homes.
Some girls were kidnapped and livestock was taken. But Sania, her husband and eight children got away.
“We left everything. We ran with only the clothes on our backs,” she said.
Copyright: 2007 WFP/Emilia Casella
Women wait in the sun outside a WFP distribution centre for displaced people at Otash camp.
Most of them ran from their villages south of Nyala, when fighting intensified in their area.
About 46,000 IDPs currently live at the camp.
Copyright: 2007 WFP/Emilia Casella
Sania and her nephew Osman Hassan, 10, (in white) line up to have their ration cards checked before collecting their food.
They’ve been waiting with hundreds of others since before 8am. The centre opened at 11am and they get to the beginning of the queue at 1pm.
Copyright: 2007 WFP/Emilia Casella
The ration that Sania will collect today will feed her, four of her children and her husband.
Ration cards are normally issued in a woman’s name and she collects the food for her family.
Food aid given to women is far more likely to reach the mouths of needy children. This means providing women with food is a priority for WFP.
Copyright: 2007 WFP/Emilia Casella
The “food basket” given to those who come to the distribution point will contain sorghum, high-nutrition corn-soya blend, lentils, vegetable oil, salt and sugar.
Copyright: 2007 WFP/Emilia Casella
A porter helps Sania with a sack of sorghum.
It is carried to an area where Sania and the women from her community will divide it among their families.
Copyright: 2007 WFP/Emilia Casella
Women from Sania’s community carry sacks of sorghum to add to the pile. The bags can weigh up to 50 kilogrammes.
Copyright: 2007 WFP/Emilia Casella
A man divides the sorghum, which is then poured into bags held by each woman.
Here, one of the women gives Sania her share.
Back home, near her village, Sania farmed a small plot of land, growing her own sorghum, okra, beans and ground nuts.
Copyright: 2007
It’s 3.30pm and a smiling Sania gets ready to walk back to her hut with her neighbours – all from the same village.
Copyright: 2007 WFP/Emilia Casella
They have paid a small fee to a local man with a donkey and cart.
It is a 20-minute walk back to Sania’s section of Otash camp. Sania and her friend carry jerry cans full of vegetable oil.
Copyright: 2007 WFP/Emilia Casella
Sania stands in front of her hut with her husband and four of her children.
They built the shelter out of donated plastic sheeting and other materials found nearby.
Not everyone in the family sleeps in this shelter. Four other children stay with Sania’s parents in a nearby hut.
As long as WFP food distributions continue, Sania’s eight children will not join the 350 million other children worldwide who go to bed hungry.
Copyright: 2007 WFP/Emilia Casella
