Government talks of roads and trains whilst refugees talk of violence and despair With a deft click of his mouse, the man in charge of South Darfur's reconstruction concludes his PowerPoint presentation with a transport map of his region: not as it is today - a mess of rutted tracks through the sand - but as it will be in five years' time. A ring road encircles the capital, linking towns, and a railway stretches away towards the Central African Republic. The £4 billion vision is all thanks to the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA), said Adam Mofaddal, South Darfur's commissioner for redevelopment and reconstruction. But on the first anniversary of a deal heralded as the best chance for bringing peace to Sudan's war-torn western region, nothing has changed in the miserable camps where millions subsist on handouts. Al Salaam camp is no more than 30 minutes drive from Mr Mofaddal's office. Lorries arrive every day carrying a human cargo intent on escaping conflict. "I turn around and go straight back," said the driver of a cattle truck who has just brought about 30 passengers from Ghirba, a day's ride to the southwest. "There are another 3,000 people who want to come here, so I'll be driving backwards and forwards for the rest of the year." That does not stop government cheerleaders claiming the deal has brought stability. At the end of his presentation Mr Mofaddal admitted that his plans were ambitious, but insisted that the deal made everything achievable. "We have more money and more power to make this work," he said. "The DPA has created stability for people to go home and for investors to come here." Last week Minni Minawi, who led his faction of the Sudan Liberation Army into the deal, was in town to launch the Transitional Darfur Regional Authority. He said thousands of people were leaving aid camps and urged more to follow. But analysts and aid workers say the official optimism fails to match conditions on the ground. Rebel groups have fragmented, attacks on aid workers are escalating and the government's Antonov bombers are still wreaking a bloody vengeance on opponents. "Compared to a year ago the situation in Darfur is much, much worse and we're finding it increasingly dangerous to work," Alun McDonald, of Oxfam, said. "The number of attacks on aid workers has rocketed and the region is increasingly lawless and volatile." The UN intends to send in a 13,000-strong force to bolster an overstretched African Union mission. Sudan agreed in principle to the deployment last November - but has managed to delay the blue hats' arrival at every opportunity, and attempts at bringing more rebel groups and militias into the DPA have stalled. So Al Salaam is growing daily. The past week has seen a sandstorm and two nights of rain, so that damp blankets and rugs hang from thorn trees, the only source of shelter. Many in the camp are from the nonArab tribes who migrated south in the 1970s, fleeing drought and desertification. There had always been tensions with the southern Arab peoples who resented their new neighbours, but conflicts over waterholes and grazing were usually resolved peacefully. "Now they just settle things with guns," says Ishamil Ishag Adam. Ismail arrived at the end of last month. His village was one of dozens attacked by Arab tribes in September. At first they thought Ghirba would provide shelter, but the Habbania and Fulata militias that forced them from their village pushed them out again. After saving up just over £4 each, he and dozens more bought safe passage to Al Salaam. Ismail said everyone wanted to go back to their farms but they held out little hope of returning soon. "We are waiting to see what happens after Minni came here and if we can get back the cattle that we lost. If there is a chance of peace then, of course, we want to go home," he says. Critics of the peace agreement said it always represented a bad deal for Darfur. But Min-ni Minawi insists it was the only deal on offer. "We need to keep working to develop the DPA with international help," he told The Times during his recent visit to Nyala. "Why would I regret the DPA? I knew when I signed it that it would not bring peace immediately." The new arrivals at Al Salaam are wondering whether it will bring peace at all.