Sudan detains aid agency head after report of rapes

By Opheera McDoom

KHARTOUM, May 30 (Reuters) – Sudanese security detained the country head of an international aid agency on Monday after authorities issued a warrant for his arrest over a report on hundreds of rapes in the Darfur region, the agency said.

Awatif Abdallah, 19, holds a letter from the police with a medical report scrawled on it saying she was raped and beaten.

Security forces detained Paul Foreman, country head of the Dutch branch of aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), but it was not clear whether he had been arrested or taken away for questioning, the agency’s office in Khartoum said.

It was the first such action taken an aid agency chief since the start of Sudan’s Darfur conflict in early 2003.

Sudan’s attorney-general, Mohamed Farid, told Reuters authorities had opened a criminal case over MSF Holland’s report in March detailing 500 rapes over 4-1/2 months in Darfur.

The MSF Holland report said its doctors working in Darfur had medical evidence of the rapes over a period of about 4 1/2 months in the region, which is in the throes of a rebellion.

Farid said the report was false.

“We have issued a warrant for the arrest of the head of the organisation after speaking to the (governmental) Humanitarian Aid Commission,” he said.

Under Sudanese law, Farid said MSF should have consulted and coordinated with the governmental Humanitarian Aid Commission before publishing any such information or reports.

Farid said the authorities had asked MSF Holland several times for the evidence on which the report was based, but the agency had refused to provide it. Therefore, they came to the conclusion the report was false.

“If they don’t give us the medical documents we will send them to the criminal court accused of publishing a false report which harms the general peace,” he said. He added the maximum penalty would be three years in jail.

Farid said Foreman would not remain in jail if he were arrested but would be released on bail pending the trial. But he would not be allowed to leave the country.

The report, which received full backing from the United Nations, said more than 80 percent of the victims reported that their attackers were militiamen or soldiers. It did not specify whether these included rebel factions.

DOCTOR-PATIENT CONFIDENTIALITY

Before his detention on Monday, Foreman told Reuters he could not violate the confidential doctor-patient relationship respected world-wide by giving authorities medical documents.

“The reports and the victims of rape are both very real and we continue to do our medical work in Darfur,” he said.

Tens of thousands have been killed in the fighting in Darfur and more than 2 million forced from their homes to makeshift camps around the region. Reports of rape are widespread in the conflict, and a U.N.-appointed commission of inquiry found evidence of mass rape during the conflict.

Rape is a sensitive subject in Muslim Darfur, and victims are often ostracised by society.

In anonymous accounts by victims, the report described how some women were held for days, raped repeatedly and beaten. It said some victims had been arrested. Pregnancy out of wedlock is illegal in Sudan, where Islamic sharia law is in force.

“These kind of false reports damage the image of Sudan,” Farid said.

Farid said it was unlikely any action would be taken against the agency itself: “We need the organisation MSF to do its medical work in Sudan … and to be present here,” he said. “But it has to do its work in its specific capacity and this (report) is not within its capacity here.”

Aid agencies operate under tight regulations in Sudan and often complain of harassment from local authorities in Darfur.

On Saturday, aid agencies told visiting U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan that they were prevented for several days from entering Kalma camp in South Darfur, Darfur’s largest camp housing about 110,000 displaced.