Sudan has expelled the European Union and Canadian envoys from the war-torn African country, state radio and Western officials said on Thursday.
The Sudanese Foreign Ministry had declared them persona non grata ”for involving themselves in activities that constitute an interference in the internal affairs of the country,” Sudan radio reported, according to BBC monitoring.
The EU Commission said its ambassador, Kent Degerfelt, had been ordered out, and the Canadian government said its charge d’affaires, Nuala Lawlor, had also been asked to leave.
Degerfelt was on holiday in Italy at the time.
”I have been in Sudan for five years and I have always worked for the good of Sudan and its people and that is why I believe that maybe there is some sort of misunderstanding somewhere,” he told Reuters.
”I am in contact with the Sudanese authorities … if need be I will go back to Khartoum next week to try to sort this out in a constructive spirit,” he added.
Sudan’s foreign minister declined to comment on the decision.
Diplomats in Khartoum said both missions had been working on human rights issues. Sudan has been widely criticised for its counter-insurgency campaign in the western Darfur region.
In Ottawa, a spokesperson for the Foreign Affairs Department, Rodney Moore, was unable to provide details of what Lawlor was accused of.
But he said: ”Ms Lawlor, in the finest traditions of Canadian diplomacy, was standing up for our values of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law in Sudan. We have asked the Sudanese authorities why they have expelled her.”
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for a junior government minister and a militia leader accused of conspiring to commit war crimes in Darfur.
An African Union force in Darfur has failed to stem the violence despite a 2006 peace deal. International experts estimate about 200 000 people have died and 2,5-million have been driven from their homes since mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003.
Sudan has a history of difficult relations with Western diplomats, whom it sometimes accuses of meddling with the country’s internal affairs. Last year, it expelled Jan Pronk, the head of the United Nations mission in Sudan. — Reuters