UNITED NATIONS/NAIROBI, 2 September 2004 — UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said yesterday that Sudan’s government has failed to keep commitments to end strife in the Darfur region and called for stronger international presence there. Annan said in report to the UN Security Council that a plan has been presented to the African Union for an international operation to stem violence and to increase the protection of civilians.

The Security Council passed a resolution on July 30 giving Sudan 30 days to take action to halt marauding militias, such as the notorious Janjaweed, who have been blamed for tens of thousands of deaths in Darfur.

Annan said that “some progress” has been made but concluded: “After 18 months of conflict and 30 days after the adoption of Resolution 1556, the government of Sudan has not been able to resolve the crisis in Darfur, and has not met some of the core commitments it has made.”

The report said: “Attacks against civilians are continuing and the vast majority of armed militias has not been disarmed. Similarly, no concrete steps have been taken to bring to justice or even identify any of the militia leaders or the perpetrators of these attacks, allowing the violations of human rights and the basic laws of war to continue in a climate of impunity.” Annan said

“I believe that a substantially increased international presence in Darfur is required as quickly as possible. The plan the United Nations has presented to the African Union provides a blueprint for such a presence, which could help improve the situation in critical aspects.”

Meanwhile, rebels in Darfur released six aid workers taken hostage over the weekend, aid agencies said yesterday, but there was still no word on the fate of 22 other health workers missing in the war-ravaged western Sudanese region. “Three UN World Food Program staff members and three members of Sudanese Red Crescent were released by the Sudan Liberation Movement this morning,” WFP spokesman Peter Smerdon told AFP in Nairobi.

The International Committee for Red Cross spokeswoman Catherine Bond said in Nairobi the “six Sudanese aid workers, including two SRC volunteers and one driver, have been released.”

“They are in good physical condition and have been handed over to the United Nations in the field,” Bond said, adding that the ICRC did not play a direct role in their release. There were only three SRC workers, and not five as earlier thought, when they were snatched on Saturday, the WFP’s Smerdon explained.

The humanitarian workers “were being held by the SLM and were released following negotiations,” he added. “They were flown by helicopter to El-Fasher (Darfur) after being picked up in the Tabit area, south of El-Fasher,” he said. “They are well and unharmed.” The aid workers went missing on Saturday afternoon in the area of Shangel Tubai, south of North Darfur state capital El-Fasher. The Khartoum government swiftly blamed the kidnapping on the rebels, but did not say which of the two factions that have been battling the army and allied militias for the past 18 months was responsible.

But both the SLM and the Justice and Equality Movement on Tuesday vehemently denied any involvement. “We in the two movements have contacted all our commanders on the field and they have confirmed to us that they are not involved in the kidnap,” Ahmed Mohammed Tugod, chief negotiator for the JEM, told AFP on the margins of peace talks in the Nigerian capital Abuja.

On Tuesday, Khartoum said the rebels had also kidnapped 22 other health workers, who were involved in a vaccination program near Nyala in southern Darfur, but the rebels again rejected the accusation.

Several aid workers operating from Nairobi told AFP that they had no word about the 22 health workers still missing, all of them Sudanese.

“Quite honestly, we have no word about the 22 others, but we are calling for their immediate release so that they can continue with operations in Darfur,” said one aid worker, who did not want to be named.

Darfur has been the theatre of fighting since February 2003 when rebels from minority tribes took up arms to demand an equal share of national development, prompting a bloody crackdown by the Khartoum government and allied militia called Janjaweed.