Rights group slams Sudan on arrest of aid workers
CAIRO, March 9 (Reuters) – An international rights group said on Tuesday Sudan had arrested two aid workers who had been providing humanitarian relief and legal assistance in the western Darfur region, where fighting has raged for over a year.
Human Rights Watch criticised the arrests in a statement received by Reuters, saying it feared both men — one of whom is charged with spying — were at risk of inhuman treatment, miscarriage of justice and possible execution.
“For the past year, the Sudanese government and its militias have waged war on the people of Darfur… Now the government is persecuting those who are trying to protect these voiceless victims,” Sudan researcher Jemera Rone said in the statement.
Sudanese government officials were not immediately available for comment on the report.
Human Rights Watch says a “government-led campaign” in Darfur has led to around 3,000 civilian deaths.
Two rebel groups launched a revolt in arid Darfur a year ago, accusing Khartoum of neglecting the area and arming Arab militias known as Janjaweed to loot and burn African villages.
The New York-based group said Saleh Mahmoud worked in Southern Darfur state providing legal assistance to people accused or convicted of crimes without a fair trial.
The statement said Mahmoud was arrested on February 1 and had not yet been charged.
The rights group said the second detainee, Mudawi Ibrahim Adam, director of a voluntary aid group, was arrested on December 28 after returning to Khartoum from Darfur, where he had distributed aid to people made homeless by the fighting.
Adam faces charges including spying, waging war against the state and provoking hatred among religious sects. Some of the charges carry the death penalty, said Human Rights Watch.
REFUGEES RETURNING
United Nations officials have warned of a humanitarian crisis in Darfur with up to one million people displaced, and more than 100,000 refugees in neighbouring Chad. But the government says the fighting is under control and refugees are returning of their own accord.
The state-owned Al-Anbaa newspaper on Tuesday quoted Sudanese Humanitarian Assistance Minister Ibrahim Mahmud Hamid as saying 9,000 Sudanese refugees in Chad had returned home.
Actress Angelina Jolie said she was donating $50,000 to the arid border areas of Chad where many Darfur refugees are camped, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement received by Reuters on Tuesday.
UNHCR said Jolie, who is also a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. body, was the first individual to make a major private donation to the organisation’s Chad emergency appeal.
UNHCR said it needs a total of $20.7 million to handle the crisis in Darfur and Chad.