UN’s Egeland mulls Sudan return
April 5, 2006 (PARIS) – A top U.N. official said on Wednesday he was weighing a possible return to Sudan after the government prevented him from visiting the troubled Darfur region this week.
Sudan’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday that U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland had been asked only to postpone his visit and would be welcome later.
“We will now consider the new statements and of course I may go at a later stage, but our main work now consists of trying to avert them from throwing out our humanitarian colleagues on the ground,” Egeland told Reuters by telephone in Paris where he was attending a development meeting.
Egeland expressed frustration at a string of delays that prevented his visit to Darfur but said he planned to brief the U.N. Security Council on the situation there later this month.
Reasons given for the postponement of Egeland’s Darfur visit include his Norwegian nationality, following the controversy over Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, and the closure of airports in Darfur for maintenance.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Jamal Ibrahim in Khartoum told Reuters: “Because of the special circumstances of the birthday of the Prophet Mohammad, the local authorities said it was not advisable to welcome him at this time.”
Two million Darfuris have abandoned their homes and tens of thousands have been killed in the three-year conflict which has left many living in squalid camps for the past two years.
Egeland, in charge of U.N. relief for the displaced, said a visit to Nairobi to launch a famine appeal for East Africa would delay an immediate return to Darfur.
“I cannot go now. This is not a game. This is serious humanitarian work,” he said. “I had agreed on a time with them and I cannot just come and go when they please.”
Egeland said he was working to ensure aid groups could continue to work in Darfur. The Norwegian Refugee Council, which provides camp management for 100,000 displaced people in southern Darfur, was being thrown out, he said.
The security situation prevented NGOs from reaching some of the needy.
“This is really what is at stake now, our ability to do lifesaving work,” Egeland said.
Some 3 million people need aid but the worsening security situation in Darfur, an area the size of France, has left 300,000 people out of reach of the more than 14,000 aid workers in the region, Egeland said.
The United States has been pressing a plan to convert the African Union peace force in Darfur into a U.N. force — an idea opposed by the Sudanese government.
(Reuters)