UN warns Sudan rebels in Darfur to stop attacks

NYALA, Sudan, March 7 (Reuters) – A senior United Nations official warned Darfur rebels they could lose all international sympathy if they continue to attack Sudanese police and target aid workers in violation of a ceasefire agreed last year.

Teenage Sudan Liberation Army fighters wearing amulets ( believed to bring good luck and protect against evil the person who wears them) look on while in the rebel held village of Bodong in North Darfur, March 3, 2005. (Reuters).

Jan Egeland, the U.N. emergency relief coordinator, said during a trip to Sudan the Darfur rebel groups needed to help their people more by reaching a peace deal in African Union-sponsored talks in the Nigerian capital Abuja quickly.

“If you continue attacking commercial trucks and police stations, if you do not release our workers, you will … lose all international sympathy and all international trust,” he told rebel leaders in the troubled western Darfur region on Sunday.

Three Sudanese working for an international aid agency were kidnapped in December in the Labado area in South Darfur, which was then held by rebels. Rebels deny holding the workers, from Adventist Development and Relief Agency International (ADRA).

Rebels have abducted aid workers but have released most of them unharmed. The rebels are concerned they are government spies posing as aid workers to gain access to rebel-held territory.

Egeland said any violations of the ceasefire, whether bombing raids by government forces, attacks by Arab militias known locally as Janjaweed, or rebel attacks on police stations and harassment of aid workers, should stop because they hindered humanitarian work in the region.

There are more than 9,000 local and international aid workers in Darfur, part of one of the largest humanitarian operations in the world, Egeland said. But the lack of security was stopping their work.

“We have to look to a better future,” he said. “We have to work together in Abuja to reach a deal faster.”

Egeland is expected to meet First Vice President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha and other ministers in Khartoum on Monday to try to push forward the talks in Abuja, Nigeria, and discuss the humanitarian situation in the south of the country.