KALMA CAMP, Sudan, 9 May 2006 — Angry demonstrators killed a Sudanese interpreter working with African Union forces in Darfur yesterday in riots which broke out during a senior UN official’s visit to a camp for displaced Sudanese. Jan Egeland, the UN undersecretary for humanitarian affairs, said the man was killed in an African Union police station after Egeland and his entourage beat a hasty retreat from the Kalma camp in the face of violent protests.
“After we left, the AU civilian police post was overrun and a member of the force was killed. He was a Sudanese interpreter,” Egeland told reporters traveling with him. Egeland and aid workers had cut short their visit to the camp in South Darfur State after a demonstration by Darfuris demanding the deployment of international troops spun out of control and an aid worker was attacked.
Tensions have increased as refugees learned details of the peace pact signed on Friday in Nigeria between the Sudanese government and the main Darfur rebel group. Many said they were disappointed with the deal, which was rejected by two rebel factions, saying it did not go far enough to protect them.
The Kalma camp melee began when a female refugee shouted that an aid worker was a member of the Janjaweed militia blamed for atrocities in Darfur. Women wearing brightly colored robes and men in white jalabiyyas gathered around shouting “Janjaweed, Janjaweed” then attacked a UN vehicle with axes, stones and sticks, shattering its windows.
One man tried to stab a Sudanese aid worker for the British charity Oxfam, who was beaten as he scrambled into the car while others tried to hold off the angry crowd. Oxfam country director Caroline Nursey said the man was a trusted long-term worker for the organization and the crowd had misunderstood something he said.
Egeland said violence targeting the AU was repeated in other camps in West Darfur yesterday. He urged calm saying people had to realize the 7,000-strong AU force was there to help. Camp dwellers’ expectations had been raised for an end to three years of fighting that has driven 2 million people from their homes and into squalid camps in Darfur and into Chad. Thousands of Kalma camp residents chanting “Welcome, welcome international protection,” surrounded Egeland with signs which read, “Enough suffering for the Darfur people.”
“This peace is not reality,” said Mohammed Jaama Sineen from Darfur’s largest tribe, the Fur. “We are asking for international forces. We want to ask Jan Egeland to send the UN to protect us,” added the refugee who has lived in Kalma camp since rebels rose against the government in 2003.
