A rumble somewhere in the distance grows steadily to a roar. Then as the Mig fighter swoops no more than nine metres (30ft) overhead its engines become an ear-splitting scream terrifying those below. Behind it comes a helicopter gunship carving figures of eight above dusty streets.

While the rest of the world took to the streets for its Global Day for Darfur yesterday, the Sudanese military was taking to the air above Nyala, the capital of south Darfur.

Thousands of people in 35 countries were on the march yesterday to highlight the conflict that has led to the deaths of up to 200,000 people and displaced another two million. Symbolic hour-glasses were filled with blood and smashed to convey the message that a failure to intervene would cost even more lives.

In Nyala, too, hundreds of people were marching – but these were soldiers practising their drill on the football pitch. The aerial show of strength was officially to welcome a visiting minister from Khartoum.

Across town, where 55,000 people live in a sprawling aid camp, the reason seems more sinister. “When the aeroplanes came it was frightening for the women and the children,” said Sheikh Abdallah Sharif Bashir, sitting on a wool carpet spread beneath the flimsy grass roof of his community’s mosque. “It’s very dangerous, but the Government wants us to know they are still in charge.”

The protests around the world yesterday were organised by a coalition of rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. The focus of the day was in London, where hundreds marched on Downing Street and presented a letter at No 10. In Rome, demonstrators marched on the Colosseum and in Berlin marchers carried alarm clocks and a banner saying: “It’s five minutes to midnight, we’re sounding the alarm”.

Smaller demonstrations took place in cities around the world, including Brussels, Stockholm, Budapest, Lagos and Melbourne. Actors and musicians, including Elton John, George Clooney, Bob Geldof, Mick Jagger and Hugh Grant, issued a statement calling on the international community to take decisive action to stop the atrocities.

But for the residents of Otash it was business as usual as the women gathered early at the wells – the waterholes run dry by mid-morning at this time of year. Things will not ease until rains in June.

After four years of war, the camp is taking on the trappings of permanence. Hand pumps have been replaced by generators and motors that suck water to the surface. Everywhere piles of mud bricks lie drying in the 45C heat. Gradually the stick-built shacks are being replaced by brick-built hovels.

It is progress of a sort, but all Sheikh Abdallah wants is for his people to be able to go home. He led 40 villagers to the relative safety of Otash in December after they came under attack from Janjawid fighters. “It is impossible to go home. It is not safe,” he said yesterday.

Like many of his Zaghawa tribe he carries a dagger strapped beneath the billowing robes of his white jalabiya – protection, he said, against Janjawid raiders who steal cattle and women from the camp at night. “We will be here until there is peace,” he said.

There has been frantic diplomatic manoeuvring this month to ease the suffering in Sudan’s western region.

The government of Omar al-Bashir has agreed to host a growing contingent of UN personnel in support of an overstretched African Union peace-keeping force. Meanwhile the US and Britain are talking up the prospect of sanctions.

For now, if anything, life in Darfur is becoming more precarious.

More than four million people remain reliant on hand-outs for survival, but aid agencies say they face intolerable risks from bandits and rebel splinter groups. Robberies and carjackings happen almost daily. Locals say the traditional ways of avoiding bloodshed have broken down.

The Government has used tribal rivalries to pursue its own agenda in Darfur, paying off some leaders but sidelining others. The result, says Ibrahim Ahmed Adam, a lecturer at Nyala University, is a breakdown in trust.

“There always used to be tribal tensions but the sheikhs used to control things,” he said. “Now they can’t.”

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