KHARTOUM, 1 June 2005 — Sudan arrested a second aid worker over a report on rape in Darfur and is also holding a man who translated for Kofi Annan when the UN chief met rape victims in the region, UN and aid officials said yesterday. News of the arrests came a day after the authorities detained a senior official from international aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in Sudan, whose remote region of Darfur has been plagued by more than two years of bloodshed.
The aid worker held yesterday was also from MSF Holland, which published a report in March detailing about 500 cases of rape over a period of 4 1/2 months in Darfur, where a rebellion has raged since early 2003. Sudan’s top UN envoy in Sudan, Jan Pronk, “deplored” the arrests of the two MSF officials and said he would raise the issue with Sudanese President Omar Hassan Bashir.
The country director of MSF Holland, Paul Foreman, was detained on Monday and released on bail after a day of questioning. He said he had been charged with spying, publishing false reports and undermining Sudanese society. “I have now been formally charged,” Foreman said, adding his colleague Vince Hoedt was still being questioned.
Hoedt, Darfur coordinator for MSF Holland, was arrested in the western region yesterday. He was flown back to Khartoum and immediately taken away by security forces. Journalists were prevented from filming his arrival. “I have been officially arrested but there are no official charges as yet,” he earlier told Reuters from Darfur. It was not immediately clear whether the arrests of the two MSF officials were in any way linked to the translator case.
Pronk said the authorities had arrested a translator who went with Annan to listen to rape victims in Darfur’s largest camp on Saturday, despite government promises no one would be harassed.
The MSF report contained anonymous accounts by victims of their ordeals, including being held and raped repeatedly for several days, beaten and even arrested. Human Rights Watch said in a statement the authorities should be arresting war criminals in Darfur, not aid workers. It said at least 20 aid workers have been arbitrarily arrested in Darfur over the past six months
