Qala En Nahal Refugee Settlement Project Eastern Sudan

Abstract

This chapter examines the project of Euro Action-ACORD in the Qala en Nahal Refugee Settlement in Eastern Sudan. The Qala en Nahal case is of particular interest, since it allows an examination of how an ongoing development program was affected by a disaster, and how programming has been affected in the aftermath by the emergency response. Sudan is the host country to many groups of refugees. About half are from Eritrea or Ethiopia, and a smaller number come from Uganda, Zaire, and Chad. Eritrean refugees have been arriving in the Sudan since the mid-1960s as a result of fighting between the Ethiopian government and those striving for the independence and/or autonomy of Eritrea. In some instances, the Sudanese government provided land to refugee settlements. Between 1969 and 1983 the government of Sudan established seventeen refugee settlements of which Qala en Nahal is the largest and oldest.