Annan calls Sudan’s Darfur “catastrophe” ahead of visit

NEW YORK, June 25, 2004 (dpa) — U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said Friday that the people in Sudan’s western region of Darfur are suffering a “catastrophe” and are the victims of “terrible crimes”.

He said he will visit that region next week, seeking to alleviate the suffering of civilians caught in the civil war there.

“I am very anxious to see this problem myself,” he said before leaving New York this weekend for three weeks of travel to Africa and Asia with the centrepiece of the visit being Darfur.

“The people of Darfur are suffering a catastrophe,” he said. “Terrible crimes have been committed against them.”

He said the total of people in Darfur needing relief would reach 1.2 million by August while the United Nations is short of 140 million dollars in its humanitarian budget.

He appealed to donor countries to be generous and fulfil pledges they made earlier this year to help the Sudanese.

“On the humanitarian side, the needs are massive,” he said. “As so often, the initial response was too slow, partly because of the severe restrictions on access we faced and security.”

But he added that U.N. agencies and non-governmental organizations have been able to provide assistance to the Sudanese.

“The most sacred responsibility of any government is to protect its people against the kind of crimes that have been committed in Darfur,” Annan said, adding that he has for months asked Khartoum to take action against those crimes.

He said the conflict in Darfur was threatening the peace process in southern Sudan, where the Islamic government in Khartoum has been fighting rebels in the south for years.

The United Nations said an estimated 1 million people have so far been displaced by fighting and more than 150,000 have fled to neighbouring Chad.

Annan is to be in Qatar early next week and then fly to Khartoum Wednesday for a three-day, first-hand study of conditions of the civilian population.

Fierce military clashes between Arab militias linked to the Khartoum government and two black-African rebel groups in Darfur have reportedly killed thousands, but Annan said last week that he would not characterize the killing as genocide even though the warring parties have violated international humanitarian law.

Human rights groups have denounced Khartoum and the Arab Janjaweed militiamen, who were armed by Khartoum, for carrying out massive human rights violations on the African population there.

Annan’s visit to Sudan coincides with the arrival of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to that country next week.

U.N. spokesmen said Annan will visit Chad and refugee camps along the border with Sudan and hold talks with government officials, including President Omar al-Bashir, on ways to end the fighting and assist the refugees.

Annan is also to visit Asmara, the Eritrean capital, and Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, where U.N. mediation two years ago ended a brief border war. A U.N. peacekeeping mission was manning the border between the two countries and monitoring a ceasefire.

Annan was scheduled to address the African Union Summit on July 3 and meet African national leaders there.

On July 7, Sudan will be back on his agenda as he flies to Nairobi to meet with negotiators trying to work out a peace agreement in southern Sudan.

He then will be in Bangkok to attend the 15th International AIDS Conference and other meetings related to anti-AIDS programmes.

Annan is then to go to Vienna July 13 before returning to New York July 17.