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NARR: Lately, Hamza Ibrahim has spent a lot of time making cell phone calls to Libya from the driver's seat of his yellow cab.
(AMBI: CAB, LOW IN BACKGROUND)
TAPE: HAMZA IBRAHIM
SO I DECIDE TO CALL THE LIBYAN GUY TODAY. I HAVE HIS PHONE NUMBER OVER HERE, SEE. OVER HERE, LET ME SEE… HIS NUMBER…. (:10)
NARR: Ibrahim is calling to check on the latest shipment - a forty by forty foot container of donated supplies. (THAT"S THE SIZE OF….) That's the size of a small house. It left Newark, New Jersey in early December and arrived in Libya a month later. It's bound for refugee camps in eastern Chad, where a quarter of a million refugees from Darfur, Sudan now live. Many in the camps lack basics - like clothes.
TAPE: HAMZA IBRAHIM
WE GOTTA FIGURE OUT WHICH CAMPS NEED IT, VERY URGENT, BECAUSE THERE'S A LOT OF CLOTHES. THOUSAND, THOUSAND OF CLOTHES, THOUSAND, THOUSAND OF SCHOOL SUPPLIES. (:09)
NARR: Clothes aren't the only need. Many of the people Ibrahim is trying to reach live in tents. Others live in homemade shelters built from sticks and fabric. Despite the dire conditions, the Sudanese refugees have so far refused to return home. In Darfur, government-backed militias have continued the killing rampage, which has so far claimed the lives of some 200,000 people. The U.S. government calls it genocide.
Hamza Ibrahim left Darfur in 1993, before the violence started. He is now treasurer of the Darfur People's Association of New York. Like many of the 350 Darfurians who have settled in Brooklyn's Kensington neighborhood, Ibrahim drives a cab for a living. When it comes to the clothing drive for Darfur, his car has become his office. His porch is a makeshift storage facility.
AMBI: BACK DOOR OPENS (:02)
NARR: Ibrahim opens the back door of his modest apartment. He rummages through the cardboard boxes and plastic bags ready for the next shipment. A donation from a nearby high school contains a pair of pink sandals, some tennis shoes and a stack of folded clothes.
TAPE: HAMZA IBRAHIM
CLOTHES, AND… SHOES, AND… THAT'S A SHIRT, THAT I OPEN IT, THAT'S A SHIRT. (:08)
NARR: The first time the Darfur People's Association sent clothes and supplies to the camps, it sent three containers. They went by way of Cameroon, and took months to arrive. Rahama Deffallah, the group's Secretary-General, flew from New York to Chad to oversee the distribution. He says it was an expensive process.
TAPE: RAHAMA DEFFALLAH
DEFFALLAH: THE FIRST SHIPMENT - EACH CONTAINER OF THREE IT COST INITIALLY $5,000 FROM NEW YORK TO CAMEROON. AND THEN EACH OF IT COST $10,000 FROM CAMEROON TO N'DJAMENA… $30,000. (:17)
NARR: That's $45,000 in transport alone, from New York to the Chadian capitol N'Djamena. Brooklyn's Darfurians paid for almost half of it themselves. The rest came from two local groups that fundraised and gave donations. Deffallah says the first shipment was enough to clothe 32,000 people.
A United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Spokesman, Tim Irwin, says his agency values all aid - like the kind Brooklyn's Darfurians are sending. But he says money is usually the best donation to give. Aid dollars flow more easily to the desert than heavy containers of clothing.
TAPE: TIM IRWIN
YOU KNOW IF YOU LOOK AT A MAP OF AFRICA, YOU COULDN'T GET A MORE LANDLOCKED COUNTRY THAN CHAD, AND THEN WHERE THE MATERIALS ARE INTENDED, WHICH IS FOR THE REFUGEE CAMPS IN EASTERN CHAD, THAT'S ALSO A VERY DIFFICULT AREA TO REACH. (:14)
NARR: No one may know that reality better than Brooklyn's Darfurians. But to them, Sudan and the refugee camps of eastern Chad feel achingly close. Those places are here, in their heads. They await phone calls that bring news of home.
Rahama Deffallah says government forces and militias bombed and burned his own village several years ago. When the bombings began, his parents didn't think they could escape to Chad. They're both old - in their 90s.
TAPE: RAHAMA DEFFALLAH
TO GET FROM WHERE THE LIVE TO THE CLOSE BORDER, TO BE SAFE, IS LIKE AROUND 140 KILOMETERS, WHICH IS LIKE 100 MILES. (:10)
NARR: One hundred miles was too far for his parents to walk. To escape the roaming militias, the elderly couple headed for the nearby mountains instead, where they hid in a cave.
TAPE: RAHAMA DEFFALLAH
AT THAT TIME…THEY LIVE IN THE CAVE. YES, THEY LIVE IN THE CAVES ON THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN. (:06)
NARR: Deffallah says his parents spent months in the caves. Eventually, they felt safe enough to return to the outskirts of what used to be their village. They now live in a temporary shelter.
(AMBI FADE UP AND HOLD THROUGH TRACK INTO TAPE: CROWD NOISE)
NARR: At a recent gathering at a banquet hall on Brooklyn's Coney Island Avenue, a cab driver named Hachim Hamad Haroun (ph) pulled me aside. He reminds me that the genocide has been going on for five years. He says the world has done little to stop it.
TAPE: HACHIM GABER
FIVE YEARS IS QUITE ENOUGH. IF SOMEBODY WANTS TO HELP YOU, I THINK FIVE YEARS IS QUITE ENOUGH SO AS TO HELP YOU. FOR HOW LONG? FOR TWENTY YEARS, FOR THIRTY YEARS, FOR FORTY YEARS? FOR HOW LONG? FIVE YEARS! (:15)
NARR: He says that Darfurians are left to help one another. He says they must. They can't trust anyone else to do it.
Molly Messick, Columbia Radio News.