Doha pledges $ 500 m in aid for Darfur

DOHA: Qatar pledged $ 500 million in aid to Sudan’s Darfur yesterday at a donors’ meeting in Doha, even as fighters launched new attacks in the troubled region scarred by a decade of conflict.
“Qatar has pledged an amount of $500 million as grants and contributions for rebuilding Darfur,” said the gas-rich emirate’s minister of state for cabinet affairs, Ahmed bin Abdullah Al-Mahmud. In February 2010, Qatar had promised to establish a bank with a capital of one billion dollars to develop Darfur.
Germany pledged 16 million euros in aid at the conference as other delegates expressed their support for development in Darfur without announcing their contributions.
Britain had on Sunday offered at least £ 11 million ( $16.5 million, 13 million euros) for Darfur annually over the next three years to help communities to grow food and to boost skills for employment.
The latest pledges came on the second day of a meeting of representatives of donor countries and aid groups in Doha. The conference aims to endorse a strategy to rebuild Darfur, where the conflict has shocked the world with atrocities against civilians.
The meeting, which drew condemnation from opposition groups still fighting the regime, was agreed under a July 2011 peace deal which Khartoum signed in the Qatari capital with an alliance of opposition splinter groups.
It seeks support for the six-year, $ 7.2-billion (5.5-billion-euro) strategy to move Darfur away from food handouts and other emergency aid, and lay the foundation for lasting development through improved infrastructure.