NEW YORK/KHARTOUM, 22 July 2004 — The UN special envoy for Sudan said yesterday that Khartoum has allowed more access for relief workers into the western region of Darfur, but has so far failed to implement agreements to provide security and protection for people displaced by militia fighting.
Jan Pronk, a former Dutch government official who also served the UN for decades, was presenting to the United Nations an assessment of the situation in Sudan and how the government there was carrying out a set of agreements aimed at easing the humanitarian crisis in Darfur.
The assessment would help the 15-nation UN Security Council decide whether to impose sanctions on the Khartoum-backed Arab militias known as Janjawid and the Sudanese government itself. Pronk told reporters before meeting the council members that “no progress” had been made in providing protection for the tens of thousands of internally displaced persons. The UN said more than 1 million civilians have fled their homes because of fighting, causing a humanitarian crisis of “catastrophic” proportions.
Early in July, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and US Secretary of State Colin Powell visited Sudan to pressure Khartoum into taking measures aimed at ending the militia war in Darfur and helping the displaced people. The United States said on Tuesday it was “completely dissatisfied” with Sudan’s failure to stop Arab militia in Darfur and Khartoum accused Washington of spoiling peace talks the African Union was now trying to revive. Powell said he told Sudanese leaders on Sunday of US concerns over Darfur. “I, the (US) president (George W. Bush) and the international community remain completely dissatisfied with the security situation,” Powell told reporters in Washington.
“Rapes are still occurring. People do not feel safe leaving the camps to go out and forage for food. The situation remains very, very serious, and first and foremost the security has to be dealt with,” he added. Powell’s blunt comments suggest Washington may be closer to pushing for a vote on a UN Security Council resolution that would place an immediate travel and arms ban on the militias and threatens to extend the sanctions to the Khartoum government.
Meanwhile, 38 people were killed when rebels in Darfur attacked a relief convoy and had a gunbattle with military escorts, a media service and an official statement said yesterday. The Sudanese Media Center and the Humanitarian Affairs Ministry said the incident occurred on Monday at Ambru in North Darfur.
In a statement, the ministry denounced the attack, which it said was the second one to be made on an Ambru relief convoy. It made no mention of fighting or casualties. SMC reported that nine government soldiers and 29 rebels were killed in the gunbattle.
The government said it had lodged a complaint against the rebels with the African Union’s cease-fire monitoring committee based in Al-Fashir. The attack brought to 109 the number of violations of last April’s cease-fire by the rebels. SMC said that in a separate incident, rebels on Monday attacked a truck chartered by the UN World Food Program in North Darfur, unloaded and took away the food it was carrying and then allowed the driver to drive on after beating him.
The government, meanwhile, announced that due to the onset of the rainy season, some parts of Darfur, including Gineina, have become inaccessible and that relief could no longer be delivered by trucks.
State Humanitarian Affairs Minister Mohamed Yusuf Abdallah was yesterday quoted by the official Al-Anbaa newspaper as saying an airlift has already begun to those parts and if this did not work the alternative of airdropping supplies would be introduced.
Abdallah said other areas such as Al-Fashir in North Darfur and Nyala in South Darfur were not affected by the rains because they had a railway and asphalted roads.
In another development, the University of Nyala was closed down indefinitely following clashes between student factions in which 12 students have been injured and taken to hospital, the independent Al-Ayam daily said yesterday.
Al-Ayam, reporting from the South Darfur capital, said the university administration on Tuesday announced the suspension of studies after clashes the previous day between students of the ruling National Congress party and those in opposition parties during a campaign for elections of the student union. The students battled each other with bamboo sticks and iron bars, the paper said.
