KHARTOUM, 3 June 2005 — A high-level African Union delegation began a three-day visit to Darfur yesterday to assess the humanitarian situation in the war-torn western Sudanese region. The visit by the team from the AU, which is monitoring a shaky cease-fire between Khartoum and Darfur’s ethnic minority rebels, comes on the heels of a tour by UN chief Kofi Annan who warned that the world was running “a race against time” to solve the conflict.
The group will meet Sudanese officials and aid workers and visit camps housing displaced people in Darfur, where between 180,000 and 300,000 people have been killed and 2.4 million made homeless since a rebel uprising in early 2003 prompted Khartoum to unleash militias in a scorched-earth campaign
The African Union announced last week it had received $292 million in donations. But it wants more than $460 million in cash, military equipment and logistical support to boost its current 2,700-strong truce monitoring operation to more than 7,700 by September.
The delegation, led by peace and security commissioner Said Djinnit, kicked off its tour in the capital of North Darfur state, El Fasher, where it will meet the head of the African Union Mission in Sudan and its force commander. AMIS spokesman Noureddine Mezni said the officials would also visit the ZamZam and Kalma camps for displaced persons, while today Djinnit will meet with US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, who is also visiting the region.
Djinnit will then go to Nyala where he will, among other things, attend a reconciliation ceremony between an Arab and an African tribes.
On Saturday, Djinnit and his delegation will hold meetings in El Fasher with the humanitarian and aid groups to discuss the situation in the region and “how best AMIS could continue to provide and enhance protection to humanitarian convoys and personnel,” said Mezni.
Meanwhile, the UN reported yesterday that the number of people in Darfur region who need food has jumped to 3.5 million — more than half of the population — as rural families join refugees in the hunger line.
The UN World Food Program (WFP) will seek an additional $96 million for Darfur, bringing its budget to $563 million for the year, according to Holdbrook Arthur, WFP regional director for East and Central Africa.
