Sudanese troops bar UN relief chief from Darfur refugee camp
March 24, 2007 (KASSAB) — Sudanese troops barred the U.N. humanitarian chief on Saturday from visiting one of Darfur’s most violence-plagued refugee camp during his first trip to this war-torn region in Sudan.
“I’m frustrated, annoyed, but it’s not atypical of what happens here,” Holmes told journalists traveling with him. He said his trip had obtained all the necessary clearances from Khartoum.
Other U.N. officials working in Darfur said that aid workers and U.N. staff were regularly blocked from doing their work at army checkpoints, and that Sudanese authorities had without motive recently confiscated costly satellite gear from one convoy.
“It’s random, but it shows just how arbitrary Khartoum’s rule is in Darfur,” said one humanitarian worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Holmes and his convoy of ranking U.N. officials attempted to negotiate their passage at the small military check point before being turned back.
“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,” Holmes 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 confiscated a videotape from a U.N. television cameraman.
The Sudanese army spokesman, Sawarmy Khaled Taat, initially said he believed there had been a confusion and that the U.N. had not obtained the proper permissions for Holmes’ visit.
But later Saturday, Sudanese authorities in el-Fasher fully apologized to Holmes, saying the incident was an individual mistake by Sudanese military intelligence personnel manning the Kessab checkpoint.
Holmes, who had formally complained to the Sudanese government, accepted the apology, the U.N. said. He did not plan to return to Kessab but was to visit other camps in another part of Darfur before returning to Khartoum on Sunday.
Kassab camp would have been Holmes’ first encounter with Darfur refugees whose assistance constitutes the largest U.N. humanitarian effort worldwide.
A day earlier, Holmes had said he pressed Sudanese officials to grant better access to aid workers trying to help Darfurians amid widespread complaints that humanitarian groups face constant obstacles from the authorities in reaching victims of the conflict.
Darfur is the scene of the biggest aid operation in the world, with some 4 million people in full or partial need of outside aid in a bloody conflict between Darfur rebels, the government and the pro-government janjaweed militias.
More than 200,000 people have been killed and over 2 million forced to flee into refugee camps in four years of fighting, and the Arab janjaweed are accused of widespread atrocities against ethnic African civilians.
Kassab, home to more than 25,000 refugees, has seen one of the highest level of rapes and other attacks against its residents, mainly blamed on the janjaweed.
However, Sudanese troops did not cite lack of security around Kassab as a reason for blocking Holmes’ convoy but merely that they “hadn’t received the right paper,” the U.N.’s top humanitarian official said.
In February, unidentified gunmen in Kassab killed a police officer belonging to the African Union peacekeeping force deployed in Darfur, and the camp has since been largely void of any international presence. Humanitarian workers say they continue to provide some aid by sporadically entering when security conditions, and the Sudanese military, allow it.
The camp is located in a region under tight control of the janjaweed and government forces, near the town of Kutum, 60 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of El Fasher, the North Darfur capital.
In February, the Sudanese government denied visas to a high-level mission of the U.N. Human Rights Council, mandated to report on the situation in Darfur.
The mission, led by U.S. Nobel laureate Jody Williams, produced its report outside the country, concluding that the government was responsible for orchestrating militia attacks against civilians in this beleaguered Sudan region.
(AP)