UN team leaves for Sudan ahead of crunch vote at rights commission
By Deborah Haynes
GENEVA, April 21 (AFP) — A UN team has left Geneva on a delayed trip to explore claims of atrocities by government-backed militia in Sudan’s western Darfur region, the United Nations said Wednesday.
The news came a day before the UN’s human rights watchdog turns the spotlight on what is being called the worst humanitarian disaster in the world.
“A fact-finding team from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights left Geneva late yesterday for Sudan to continue its enquiries into the situation of human rights in the Darfur region of the country,” the office said in a statement.
Khartoum had initially blocked the five-person mission, which spent more than a week in neighbouring Chad earlier this month interviewing Sudanese refugees who escaped alleged ethnic cleansing by Arab militia in Darfur.
But the government reversed its decision on Tuesday ahead of a vote at the United Nations’ top human rights forum in Geneva on a resolution condemning widespread violence in Sudan, which is due to take place on Thursday.
Following their initial mission, the UN team submitted a report to acting High Commissioner for Human Rights Bertrand Ramcharan which contained “serious allegations of a troubling nature that had been made to them by the refugees they interviewed,” the UN human rights office said in a statement.
Ramcharan, however, postponed releasing the text, which may have coincided with the Commission’s vote on the resolution, until the team finishes its second trip to the region.
Sudan is due take centre stage at the UN Commission on Human Rights on Thursday after a string of delays over the past week, as the 53-Commission studies for the first time claims of violence in Darfur.
A draft resolution by the European Union voices fear about “the grave violation of human rights and international humanitarian law in Darfur, in particular, reports of systematic attacks on civilians, targeting of villages and centres for internally displaced persons.”
The proposal also criticises a lack of government help during the unrest and refers to “the widespread recourse to rape and other forms of sexual violence, including against children, as a means of warfare.”
While welcoming peace talks in Chad’s capital, Ndjamena, the text urges all parties to declare an immediate ceasefire in Darfur, stop attacks on civilians and allow international aid to reach people who have been forced to flee their homes due to the fighting.
It calls on the UN’s human rights office to increase its presence in the capital Khartoum and also decides to appoint a special envoy to Sudan who would sumbit a report on his or her findings the following year.
Sudan has denied arming the Arab militias who have looted and burned African villages, forcing some one million people to flee their homes and become displaced in Darfur, while a further 100,000 have crossed over to Chad.
Around 10,000 people are also believed to have died in more than a year of fighting, which started with a rebel revolt against the government amid allegations it had backed the militias and was neglecting the Darfur region.