UN says security worsening in Darfur, relief work hampered

GENEVA, Nov 2 (AFP) — Humanitarian organisations expressed alarm over worsening security in Sudan’s conflict-wracked Darfur region, where the UN refugee agency has been forced to cancel several missions.

A United Nations cargo plane drops humanitarian aid packages on a prefixed site miles away from the western town of El-Geneina, close to the border with Chad.

The spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Ron Redmond, said trips had been planned by UNHCR staff to Djebel Moon in west Darfur, north of El Geneina, and Masteri, 50 kilometres (30 miles) to the south of El Geneina, but were not currently possible.

“Recently there were more reports on rebel activity, and that is a concern to us because of the possibility of retaliatory action. … We are concerned about the risk of further displacement towards Chad,” Redmond said.

Since February last year, the three western Darfur provinces of Sudan have been embroiled in a conflict pitting two rebel movements against government forces and Khartoum’s proxy Arab militias.

The two sides are currently in talks in Nigeria trying to thrash out a political settlement to the brutal conflict, which has driven 1.5 million people from their homes and left tens of thousands dead.

Relief agencies had to stop some aid work after 18 Sudanese of Arab origin were kidnapped last Thursday from a bus between Zalinge and Nyala in West Darfur.

Khartoum has blamed the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and Redmond said humanitarian workers fear violent reprisals for the abduction.

A UNHCR mission which went to Masteri on October 26 had been due to return there for several days from Sunday to monitor the movement to neighbouring Chad of refugees, but this mission was cancelled.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) announced that two displaced persons’ camps close to Nyala were on Tuesday surrounded by soldiers and police who prevented access there by relief workers.

“The WFP fears that an operation to resettle these people is beginning,” WFP spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume said in Geneva.

The government has justified the operation by claiming that townspeople have infiltrated camps to claim food rations.

A WFP spokesman in Khartoum also said it had been told by the government that one of the two camps had been sealed off for its own protection, following information on the threat of an imminent attack by Arab militias.

Deteriorating security has also prevented aid workers from travelling by road to several centres for 160,000 displaced people at Zalingie, Nerpetie and Golo in west Darfur, the WFP said.

“It’s part of a general pattern in which our space for humanitarian activity is shrinking,” spokesman Barry Came said from Khartoum.

“There is a deterioration of the security situation, and it’s playing havoc with relief efforts.

“The deterioration can have several reasons, whether it be clashes between the SLM and the government, simple banditry, tribal feuds, or a combination of all three,” he explained.

About 100 humanitarian workers, notably employees of the charity CARE, were airlifted out of the area by helicopter on Monday, she said.

Pro-government Arab militias, known as the Janjaweed, have been accused by aid agencies, refugees and the US government of carrying out genocide against Darfur’s population of black African origin.

Khartoum is under the threat of oil sanctions on its vital oil industry if it fails to ensure the protection of civilians and allow organisations to press on with their relief effort for what the UN has termed the world’s worst ongoing humanitarian disaster.

As discussions are under way in Abuja to reach a deal ending the 20-month-old civil war, the government and rebels groups have traded accusations, each one accusing the other of trying to destabilize Darfur.