Posted on 10/13/2004 7:26:57 PM PDT by blam
More flee Darfur as pleas to Bashir go unheeded
By David Blair, Africa Correspondent
(Filed: 14/10/2004)
An upsurge of fighting in Darfur has forced a further 220,000 people to flee their homes for refugee camps and severely disrupted the international relief effort, the United Nations said yesterday.
The situation in Sudan's war-torn western region has continued to worsen despite heavy pressure on President Omar al-Bashir's regime and constant official assurances that the violence would be curbed.
Members of the Sudanese Liberation Army on parade
Mr al-Bashir repeated these pledges when he met Tony Blair in Khartoum last week and agreed to a five-point plan of action to deal with the crisis.
But Manuel Aranda da Silva, the UN's humanitarian co-ordinator for Sudan, said the escalating dangers faced by aid workers in Darfur were the biggest obstacle for the relief effort.
"Security is probably becoming the main constraint to the delivering of humanitarian assistance in Darfur. It was not the case a couple of months ago," he said.
The UN's figures show a constant rise in the number of refugees. About 1.45 million people now inhabit Darfur's refugee camps and another 200,000 have fled over the border into neighbouring Chad.
Two months ago, the comparable figures were 1.2 million and 160,000 respectively. The UN estimates that the refugee population has swollen by 220,000 over the past month, reflecting renewed fighting between government forces, the pro-regime Janjaweed militia and rebels styling themselves the Sudan Liberation Army.
Official estimates suggest that 20 months of civil war have claimed 50,000 lives. Two aid workers from Save the Children, one of them British, were killed when their vehicle ran over an anti-tank landmine in northern Darfur on Sunday.
Mr da Silva said this incident demonstrated the threat faced by aid workers. Only nine miles of road can be cleared of landmines every day, he said, while Darfur is the size of France and the routes used for relief supplies often cover hundreds of miles.
Darfur has now been the subject of two UN resolutions, both passed under Chapter VII of the UN charter making them mandatory on the Khartoum regime. Both have demanded an end to the violence and the observance of a ceasefire agreed between the government and rebel forces in April. The first resolution gave Khartoum 30 days - or until the end of August - to disarm the notorious Janjaweed militia.
But the UN officials and aid workers say that the humanitarian situation continues to worsen.
What is going on in Sudan is a horrible travesty.
Same stuff, different day.
No one cares. Sudan is getting away with murder.
It is appalling. WTF???????? Seriously, why is okay for Sudan to do such horrible atrocities. This is a horrible travesty.
Too many UN hands in the petroleum honeypot my friend.
UN is Useless Nation more like. It was always useless from day one.
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