CAIRO, 6 May 2004 — Fighting has erupted between Sudanese government forces and rebels in western Sudan despite a cease-fire signed last month, military and security sources said yesterday.
The fighting breaks a truce designed to enable urgent food and medical supplies to reach hundreds of thousands of people forced from their homes, and aid groups warned of a humanitarian crisis.
The sources in the impoverished region of Darfur, who asked not to be identified, said clashes around Abu Gamra, 45 km north of the town of Kebkabiya, involved forces commanded by Sudan’s army.
“We are still fighting factions of the rebels. The fighting is continuing. We have to destroy them. These are our orders,” a senior Sudanese military source said, speaking by telephone from Darfur.
“This is the third day of fighting. Some of the rebels refuse to accept that they have to lay down their arms,” he said.
An Arab League delegation is visiting the region to review humanitarian needs a day after UN officials warned of a crisis of “enormous proportions”, a report said yesterday.
League Secretary-General Amr Moussa ordered the mission to examine how the member states could help alleviate the humanitarian crisis.
“The Arab League has a major role to play towards the Sudan and the Sudan question has always been on the top of the league’s concerns,” Samir Hassan Hosni, the league’s official in charge of Sudan affairs, was quoted as saying.
“We are concerned with the Sudan in general and with Darfur in particular.”
Hosni toured refugee camps Tuesday and was also expected to travel to camps in neighboring Chad.
Aid workers say they face a race against time to deliver supplies before rains start later in May, rendering many roads unusable.
The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) said the conflict had forced more than one million people from their homes in Darfur and caused 100,000 Sudanese refugees to cross the border to Chad.
“This is one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, with so many people in the most belligerent way being chased from their homes,” WFP Executive Director James Morris said.
“The general food situation is so bad that we are afraid there will be a famine. If international aid does not start on a large scale, there will be a famine,” said Stefan Pleger, a logistical coordinator for Medecins Sans Frontieres in Darfur.
“We have reached our financial limit, we have reached our personnel limit. We need more support,” Pleger told a news conference in Vienna. “We need more international aid organizations to work on site.”
