French minister: ending Darfur’s rebellion is critical for regional stability
By Patrick Rahir
NDJAMENA, Feb 19 (AFP) — French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin on Thursday warned that ending Sudan’s Darfur rebellion was critical for regional stability, and called for more emergency aid for thousands of refugees who have fled the fighting into neighbouring Chad.
“We must all be engaged” by the conflict between Sudan’s government and rebels, de Villepin said after meeting with Chadian President Idriss Deby. “Stability in this region depends on it.”
“The regional and international community also have a part to play in this,” he said.
De Villepin, who spent the day in Chad and was to travel on Friday to the Sudanese capital Khartoum, made the war-torn Darfur region and its humanitarian crisis the key issue of his visit.
The steady stream of refugees pouring into Chad from the Darfur region is a source of major concern in this north African country, a former French colony.
Earlier in the day, de Villepin visited the Forchana refugee camp in the east of Chad, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the Sudanese border, where the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) is looking after thousands of refugees, mostly women, children and the elderly, who have fled the fighting in Darfur.
“Time is running out,” the French minister told a crowd of 1,800 people at the camp.
“Like all other providers of aid, we want to get moving to satisfy these needs” before the start of the rainy season in June, he said.
The country aims to accommodate about 3,000 people at Forchana and to provide shelter to 100,000 other refugees living along the border before the start of the rainy season, said the UNHCR’s mission chief in Chad, Alphonse Malanda.
About 3,000 people have been killed and another 670,000 displaced within Sudan itself by the war between rebels drawn mainly from the region’s non-Arab minorities and government troops and their Arab militia allies.
The rebellion erupted a year ago over the western Darfur region’s alleged economic neglect by the government.
Diplomats have said that the Arab militias have also carried out raids into Chad.
Some Darfur rebels are members of the Zaghawa ethnic group — like President Deby and part of the Chadian armed forces.
Chad, which has denied any involvement in the Darfur crisis, has been pressing for mediation since late last month. Two ceasefires mediated by Ndjamena have broken down.
Fighting has intensified since a third round of negotiations failed in the Chadian capital in mid-December.
De Villepin recalled that Sudanese President Beshir had proposed a conference to negotiate peace in the Darfur area, and said both France and Chad were ready to help mediate.
His visit to Khartoum on Friday will be the first for a French foreign minister to the country.
As well as the situation in Darfur, he is expected to discuss with Beshir the peace process aimed at ending 21 years of conflict that has pitted Sudan’s southern animist and Christian region against the Muslim, Arabised north.