Efforts continue to regain full access to people in need
As explained in previous bulletins, the intensification of the conflict in Darfur has made it difficult to reach vulnerable people and deliver aid. The situation has been exacerbated by an increase in incidents of banditry targeting aid operations, including the theft of telecommunication and transport equipment.

In late October last year the ICRC suspended its activities outside Al Geneina in West Darfur. Today, clashes continue in the area and the organization has not yet received convincing security guarantees for its field teams, although recent developments in Seleia (see below) have been encouraging. Also in West Darfur, the Jebel Mara area and the towns of Golo and Rokeiro in particular have recently witnessed heavy fighting and security conditions are so poor that no humanitarian organization is working there. The ICRC is still reviewing the possibility of resuming is activities in this area, where it believes it is urgent to assess needs.

The ICRC's purpose in Darfur has always been to respond to the needs of both the displaced and the resident populations in remote and rural areas. To this end, it is working tirelessly with all the parties to the conflict to obtain the security guarantees it requires to carry out its activities.

Assistance gets through to Gereida
On 7 February, after waiting for more than three weeks in the South Darfur state capital Nyala, an ICRC convoy managed to reach the town of Gereida with food and other essential items for 80,000 displaced people living in camps. More convoys should soon return to Gereida to replenish the food stocks in ICRC warehouses, which were running dangerously low.

Since early January, the ICRC had been unable to use the roads to the east or south of Nyala because of the upsurge in the fighting. The Gereida convoy finally got through after security guarantees had been received from the parties to the conflict. Clashes have continued around Gereida in recent weeks, displacing a further 10,000 people.

Large numbers of people have also been reportedly uprooted in the area of Mershing, north of Nyala on the road to Al Fashir, and displaced to neighbouring villages where their needs are being assessed by other aid agencies.

In Seleia, north of Al Geneina, food was distributed in early February for the first time in many months. After a serious security incident in November 2005, the entire ICRC team had been pulled back from Seleia to its base in Al Geneina. Local ICRC staff have now succeeded in reaching Seleia and have distributed food to 3,000 people in a camp for displaced people on the outskirts of the town. The ICRC is in permanent contact with the health clinic it supports in Seleia and continues to supply it from Al Geneina. For the time being, only locally recruited ICRC staff are permanently working in Seleia.

Field surgical team
Over the past three weeks the ICRC's field surgical team has been kept busy providing treatment for 35 patients in Gereida (South Darfur), Golul (Jebel Marra) and Teberat (south of Kabkabyia). In cooperation with the Finnish Red Cross it also held a five-day workshop on war-surgery techniques for 14 junior doctors and 60 nurses in Nyala. Training of staff, under the auspices of the Finnish Red Cross, will continue to be a major priority at Nyala Teaching Hospital. A second war-surgery workshop is currently being held for 25 doctors in Al Geneina.

Families reunited and more detainees released
The ICRC succeeded in reuniting two boys from Chad with their families in Sudan on 4 February, one year after the first Red Cross message was sent off to trace the boys' families. In view of the instability along the Chad-Sudan border, the boys were taken to the Chadian capital N'Djamena and from there to their families via Khartoum.

On 2 February the Sudan Liberation Army released 21 detainees under ICRC auspices in North Darfur. The ICRC transported the former detainees to the state capital Al Fashir, where they were handed over to the local authorities.

Protecting the civilian population
ICRC delegates deployed in the field document abuses affecting civilians and other non-combatants. The ICRC makes direct representations to the parties concerned with a view to preventing the recurrence of abuses and minimizing their effects. It also carries out food, health, water and sanitation programmes designed to improve the protection and security of beneficiaries, especially in remote rural areas.