20 April 2010 - After a 42-kilometer, three-hour journey through unforgiving desert terrain, a military convoy and two UNAMID tanker trucks, containing a combined 40,000 liters of water, yesterday made their way to the village of Harari Naria.

The rural community, located just north of El Fasher, the capital of the North Darfur state and home to the Mission’s headquarters, will use the water in the manufacturing of bricks for a community school. The delivery marks the second time UNAMID has delivered the resource to assist the community in the project.
According to local officials, if all goes as planned, the construction of the eight-room schoolhouse will commence in two weeks and be completed by early July, just in time for the new academic year.
The initiative is part of UNAMID’s ongoing commitment to provide technical and logistical assistance to the Government of the Sudan’s disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) programme. The programme provides financial assistance and other incentives to those former combatants who agree to be discharged, as well as construction funding to communities most in need.
Hussein Ahmed Hussein, an official from the North Sudan DDR Commission, Darfur Sector, noted that the project will benefit more than 300 students, 32 of whom are former child soldiers. Joseph Ekwale, a UNAMID officer, explained that the main objective is to reintegrate those children back into society.
UNICEF, the Sudanese Ministry of Education and the community are to provide the school with materials, including books and stationary.