N’DJAMENA, 11 July 2004 — Sudan President Omar Bashir held talks yesterday in Darfur with his Chadian counterpart, Idriss Deby, on the humanitarian crisis in the war-torn region of western Sudan, Chad’s public radio said.
Earlier, the governor of West Darfur, Suleiman Abdullah Adam, quoted on Sudanese state radio, said the two leaders would discuss the formation of a joint force to be deployed along the border between the African neighbors.
On Friday, Chadian interim Defense Minister Emmanuel Nadingar and his Sudanese counterpart, Gen. Bakri Hassan Saleh, discussed the ways and means of deploying a one-thousand-strong joint force to patrol the border area.
Bashir and Idriss were to discuss their conclusions at a second meeting, due later yesterday, in the Sudanese town of Geneina, just 20 kilometers from the border with Chad. The radio said deployment of the force was dependent on the disarmament of militia groups, such as the pro-Khartoum Janjawid, which have been combating the revolt in Darfur alongside the Sudanese Army.
Bashir and Idriss last met Thursday in Addis Ababa with the presidents of Nigeria and South Africa and a decision was taken for the African Union to deploy an armed force to protect its ceasefire observers in Darfur as soon as possible.
Those talks came ahead of a meeting in Geneina on Friday between the defense ministers of Sudan and Chad to discuss the security situation in the border region and the fate of tens of thousands of Darfuri refugees in Chad. Chadian Foreign Minister Nagoum Yassoum said in Addis Ababa that the AU force, to which Sudan has raised no objection, would be around 300 strong and that the number of observers would be increased.
Meanwhile, two million children have been protected against measles in a UN vaccination campaign in Darfur region but as many as 500,000 more could not be reached due to the fighting, UN agencies said on Friday. “Of special concern is western Darfur, where half the children remain beyond our reach,” said Carol Bellamy, executive director of the UN children’s agency UNICEF, which has been working with the Sudanese Health Ministry and the World Health Organization, the UN health agency.
“We’re ready to carry out campaigns in these areas, but we need the Sudanese government and all armed groups to guarantee the security of vaccination teams,” she said in a statement at the United Nations.
UNICEF and the World Health Organization launched the all-out vaccination campaign a month ago after widespread reports of measles outbreaks in the refugee camps. The agencies estimated the campaign could save as many as 50,000 lives as the disease can spread quickly in such camps and is particularly deadly to vulnerable young children.
