Sudanese authorities have restored aid deliveries to a camp for 90 000 displaced people in Darfur, United Nations officials said, three days after soldiers reportedly closed the camp following a mob killing of an alleged pro-government militiaman.
More than 400 Sudanese fled Darfur to Chad during the weekend, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ spokesperson for east Chad said on Monday.
The refugees are, ”a larger number than we have seen in the past two months but it is by no means a new wave,” said Eduardo Cue.
”What the refugees are telling us [is that] some had crossed back to Darfur and then have come back again because they have basically lost hope in the peace process,” Cue said.
The top UN envoy to Sudan, Jan Pronk, told government officials that he was concerned about the fact that ”the Janjaweed militia was still active and continued to be a threat,” a spokesperson for the UN mission in Sudan said.
Pronk was referring to the pro-government Arab militia that are accused of waging a brutal campaign to drive African Sudanese out of the Darfur province. More than one million people have been forced to flee their homes since African rebels rose against the government in February 2003.
The government denies backing the Janjaweed. But at the end of July, the UN Security Council gave Sudan a month to disarm the Janjaweed and other militia.
Radhia Achouri said that Pronk met Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail on Sunday for a meeting of the joint UN-Sudan committee that is supposed to oversee implementation of an agreed plan to restore peace to Darfur in 30 days.
Achouri quoted Pronk as saying that while the government has shown the political will to implement the plan in the first 10 days, he was ”concerned at the lack of progress registered so far on the ground”.
On Monday, Pronk met vice-president Ali Osman Mohamed Taha, who emphasised ”the sincere desire of the Sudanese government to normalise the situation in Darfur,” state television reported.
In New York, UN spokesperson Fred Eckhard said Pronk had spoken to government officials on Sunday about the closure of Kalma camp for three days.
UN officials in Sudan and Kenya had reported Sudanese soldiers as preventing aid from reaching about 90 000 displaced people in Kalma, which lies east of the South Darfur capital of Nyala. The soldiers acted after camp inhabitants killed an alleged member of the Janjaweed on Friday.
Deputy information minister Abdel Dafe Khattib had denied the camp was closed.
”In an update received from Mr Pronk’s office this morning, we were told that the authorities reopened the Kalma camp to humanitarian workers [on Monday],” Eckhard said.
Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir reiterated on Monday his government would not allow foreign peacekeepers to operate in Sudan.
”We do not need foreign troops to protect the Sudanese villages or people. We will never accept any intervention forces,” el-Bashir told a military parade in Jebel Awlia, about 30km south of Khartoum.
About 150 Rwandan troops deployed in Darfur on Sunday and a Nigerian contingent is scheduled to arrive next week. They are mandated to protect the African Union monitors that are observing a shaky ceasefire in Darfur.
However, Rwandan President Paul Kagame has said that if his country’s troops saw civilians in danger, they would use force to protect the civilians.
Foreign Minister Ismail said on Sunday this would not be acceptable, and el-Bashir’s remarks endorsed that. However, el-Bashir did not say what the government would do if the African Union troops did intervene in fighting in Darfur.
Germany said on Monday it would supply communications equipment to the African Union monitors in Darfur. The foreign ministry said the government would ”shortly” deliver satellite phones and radio equipment worth 100 000 euros to the AU in Sudan. – Sapa-AP