Sudan reaches agreement with UN on arrested aid workers

KHARTOUM, June 1, 2005 (AP) — Sudan’s foreign minister said Wednesday that the government had reached an agreement with the United Nations over the fate of two arrested aid workers.

Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail did not elaborate, but the statement raised expectations that charges would be dropped against the employees of Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), who were arrested after their agency spoke out about alleged rape cases in the troubled western region of Darfur.

Ismail said agreement had been reached that would “allow the voluntary agencies to operate and work professionally within the humanitarian framework and would at the same time preserve the respect and national will of the country” the official Sudan News Agency reported.

The British Broadcasting Corp., on its Web site, quoted Ismail saying he agreed the pair should not have been arrested. It said U.N. special envoy Jan Pront met both the Sudanese president and the foreign minister and was said to have received assurances that all charges would be dropped.

It also quoted Ismail saying the two aid workers had been released.

A spokeswoman for the U.N. mission in Sudan could not be reached for comment. Medecins Sans Frontieres said it had not received any new information from the Sudanese authorities about the two men.

On Monday, MSF’s head in Sudan, Paul Foreman, was arrested and charged with spreading false information. The next day a Dutch worker with the group, Vincent Hoedt, was arrested in Darfur, the group said. Both men were later released on bail.

The arrests came after MSF issued a report in March saying its doctors working in Darfur had collected medical evidence of 500 rapes over 4 1/2 months. The report said more than 80% of the victims reported that their attackers were soldiers or members of government-allied militia.

Sudan’s government denied the claims. However, the U.N. mission in Sudan said Tuesday that in response to allegations of sexual abuse by government troops the Sudanese government “has issued a directive to the military commanders in different locations that serious action will be taken against them if found implicated in such acts.”

The Dutch government summoned the Sudanese ambassador to protest the arrests, and the U.N. also complained. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s special representative to Sudan, Jan Pronk, said Wednesday that he backed the MSF report on rapes in Darfur “100 percent.”

Earlier Wednesday, Ismail had warned international organizations not to meddle in his country’s affairs.

“Organizations operating in Sudan should observe the country’s national security in their dealings and they should not be seek to tarnish Sudan’s image through issuance of false information,” he said.

More than two years of conflict in Darfur has killed at least 180,000 people, many from war-induced hunger.

The conflict erupted when rebels in the western region took up arms against what they saw as years of state neglect and discrimination against Sudanese of African origin. The government is accused of responding with a counterinsurgency campaign in which government-backed Arab militiamen known as Janjaweed committed wide — scale abuses — including killings, rape and arson – against the African population.