UN aid body chief barred from visiting Darfur camp

GulfNews.com ^ | 25/03/2007 12:00 AM (UAE) | na

[fishhound]

Kassab, Darfur: Sudanese troops barred the UN humanitarian chief yesterday from visiting Darfur's most violence-plagued refugee camp during his first trip to the war-torn region.

The convoy carrying John Holmes was halted at a checkpoint about a 1 kilometre outside the Kassab refugee camp, and he was told he did not have the proper papers to visit the site.

"I'm frustrated, annoyed, but it's not atypical of what happens here," Holmes told journalists travelling with him. He said his trip had obtained all the necessary clearances from Khartoum and "this is rather typical of the kind of problem people are encountering in this kind of area. But it is interesting to see it in practice," he said.

The soldiers at the checkpoint briefly prevented a car carrying journalists from leaving after Holmes turned back from the site. The journalists were only allowed to leave after the troops took a videotape from a UN television cameraman.

[fishhound]

"More than 200,000 people have been killed and more than 2 million displaced in four years of fighting, and the Arab janjaweed are accused of widespread atrocities against ethnic African civilians."

[watchin]

Can the UN find a way to become any more irrelevant?