British aid charity pulls out of Darfur after killings

NAIROBI, Dec 21 (AFP) — The British charity Save the Children said it had withdrawn from Sudan’s war-ravaged western region of Darfur after four of its workers were killed there in the past two months.

Save the Children’s Supplementary Feeding Center in Tewila, North Darfur.

“It is with deep regret that Save the Children UK, announces that we are unable to continue our humanitarian operations in Darfur due to the tragic deaths of four staff members in two separate incidents over the past two months,” Save the Children said in a statement Tuesday.

“We just cannot continue to expose our staff to the unacceptable risks they face as they go about their humanitarian duties in Darfur.”

“We are devastated that we are unable to continue to offer healthcare, nutritional support, child protection and education to the approximately 250,000 children and family members served by our current programmes in North and South Darfur,” the statement added.

The African Union (AU) last week said that the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), one of the rebel movements fighting in Darfur, had killed two Sudanese aid workers, who were working for Save the Children.

The killings were the second fatal incident suffered by Save the Children staff in two months.

On October 10, British programme manager Rafe Bullick and his Sudanese colleague, water engineer Nourredine Issa al-Tayeb, were killed in a landmine blast in North Darfur.

The statement did not give the number of Save the Children staff working in the region, where the agency has been operating for the past 20 years.

“We hope to one day resume operations in Darfur, with a view to helping people rebuild their lives and communities, once the security situation has stabilised,” it added.

Darfur has been embroiled in conflict since February last year, when rebels from the SLM and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) launched a revolt against Khartoum, claiming the Arab-led government had marginalised and persecuted the region’s black African tribes.

In the subsequent crackdown, pro-government militias have attacked black communities, murdering and raping tens of thousands of civilians and driving more than 1.6 million from their homes, according to the United Nations.

Also on Tuesday, AU troops monitoring a ceasefire said they had suspended their activities in southern Darfur pending the results of an investigation into an attack on one of their helicopters.

The chopper, which deployed on Sunday to monitor compliance with the ceasefire deal, was forced to return to its base in El-Fasher after coming under fire from the ground.

Web sites:

– BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk

– Save The Children: http://www.savethechildren.org.uk