"No society is free from problems," says Ahmed, a young man in one of Darfur's many camps. "We are altogether here in the camp united by our situation, but when there is a problem, people often divide into groups based on their origin," he says.
With thousands of people forcefully driven from their homes into overcrowded camps, where both resources and opportunities are short, disputes have become a frequent feature of life for many of Darfur's displaced.
"There are many problems inside the camp; problems within families - usually between the man and wife, problems between a sheikh and the people of his village, disputes between a buyer and seller," reports Ali, deputy sheikh of sheikhs in Dereig camp, which is currently sheltering over 20,000 people.
"Also, sometimes there is a misunderstanding between different groups of people. If an organisation is serving one sector of the camp and another sector close by is not receiving anything, then this can lead to conflict," explains Ahmed from Mershing, where 50,000 people are living in camps.
However, with training and assistance from two of Christian coalition ACT-Caritas' national partners - the Sudan Council of Churches and Sudanaid - several groups of sheikhs, women, and youth have been empowered with the skills and knowledge to enable them to resolve conflicts peacefully. The trainees have set up conflict resolution and reconciliation committees in five camps in south Darfur.
"Since we established the committee we have managed to solve many problems inside the camp," says Ahmed, a member of the youth reconciliation committee in Mershing. "For example, disputes between husband and wife, between groups of boys. We have also integrated the football teams of the camp with those of the local community."
"To resolve a conflict, the way to create reconciliation is to mediate. This is our role," explains Babi, another member of the youth committee.
Salih, a member of Derieg camp's conflict resolution committee of sheikhs, explains further: "In the training we learnt how to intervene so as to solve a problem between people or groups; we listen to both sides, initially separately, and then we bring the two sides together with the committee acting as a neutral party to mediate between them.
