Khartoum says Darfur town where aid worker killed now calm

KHARTOUM, Dec 23 (AFP) — The Sudanese town where an employee of aid agency Doctors without Borders (Medecins sans frontieres — MSF) was killed last week is now calm and under government control, the governor of South Darfur state said.

Governor of south Darfur Al-Haj Atta al-Mannan gives a press conference in Khartoum, December 23, 2004. (AFP).

“There is no fighting now in Labado and Mihajriyah areas which are now secure and calm,” Al-Haj Atta al-Mannan told a news conference.

The governor said he had no knowledge of the death of the Sudanese MSF employee which the aid agency blamed on an offensive against ethnic minority rebels in Labado town by government troops.

“We have no knowledge of this incident and, as far as I know, Labado is calm and under the control of the government army, and journalists will be invited in the coming days to visit the area.”

In a statement released in Nairobi Wednesday, MSF said its employee “was shot dead in front of the MSF warehouse in Labado town while off duty”.

“According to reliable reports, the Sudanese aid worker was killed on December 17 during an attack led by government troops on Labado in South Darfur,” it said.

MSF emergency coordinator Ton Koene said his organisation could still not account for another 29 of its 38 Sudanese staff in Labado, a town of some 27,000 people which has been the scene of clashes between government troops and rebels in recent days.

“Aid workers are increasingly at risk in Darfur. Several organisations have lost staff,” the MSF statement said, urging “all parties to respect the neutrality of our organisation, our staff and the work we do.”

On Tuesday, another aid agency, Save the Children, said it had withdrawn from Darfur after four of its workers were killed there in the past two months.

The region has been embroiled in a bloody civil war since February last year, when rebels from the Sudan Liberation Movement and Justice and Equality Movement rose up against the Arab-dominated regime in Khartoum.

The authorities responded by unleashing Arab militias against minority groups suspected of supporting the rebels in a scorched earth campaign that has sparked what the United Nations describes as the world’s worst current humanitarian crisis.