Second humanitarian worker with MSF in Sudan detained

KHARTOUM, Sudan, May 31, 2005 (AP) — Sudanese authorities have charged one foreign aid worker with spreading false information and detained a second after their agency spoke out about alleged rape cases in Darfur.

Vincent Hoedt, 36, has worked for MSF since 1996 and was born in Rotterdam, Holland. Vincent has worked for MSF in Colombia, Liberia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Zambia, Albania and Nigeria. Vincent worked first as a logistician, later as project co-ordinator and head of mission for MSF. (MSF).

Susanne Staals, spokeswoman for the Dutch branch of Medicins Sans Frontieres, said by telephone from Amsterdam on Tuesday that the group’s Darfur coordinator had been arrested in the western region that morning and authorities were taking him to the capital. She said no other information was immediately available on the arrest of Vincent Hoedt, a Dutch aid worker.

The day before, Paul Foreman, the head of the group’s operations for all of Sudan, was detained and questioned before being charged with spreading false information and released.

Sudanese Prosecuting Attorney Mohamed Fareed said in a statement Monday that a case has been filed against Foreman and he was asked not to leave the country until interrogations are complete.

The Sudanese government was angered by the MSF report, published in March, that said its doctors working in Darfur had collected medical evidence of 500 rapes over 4 1/2 months. The report said more than 80 percent of the victims reported that their attackers were soldiers or members of government-allied militia. The government denied the report.

“Upon interrogation, (Foreman) was not able to substantiate the claims nor could he provide any documents to this effect,” Fareed said, complaining that the allegations were published on the group’s Web site and quoted by the United Nations.

Fareed said if such crimes had really happened the culprits would be punished by prison and fines.

Staals said her group stood behind its report but that its sources’ privacy had to be protected because they had provided information in a doctor-patient relationship.

“We are intrigued by the fact that they are charging us, an agency investing millions in the saving of lives, rather than the people responsible for the rape,” said Geoffrey Prescott, another spokesman for the Dutch branch of MSF.

In Geneva Tuesday, U.N. human rights chief Louise Arbour expressed concern over the Sudanese government’s move.

Targeting the humanitarian community for doing its work “will not only do a disservice to the people of Darfur, it will draw attention away from the real criminals, those who continue to rape, kill and pillage with impunity,” Arbour said.

The Darfur conflict erupted when rebels in the western region took up arms against what they saw as years of state neglect and discrimination against Sudanese of African origin. The government is accused of responding with a counterinsurgency campaign in which government-backed Arab militiamen known as Janjaweed committed wide-scale abuses — including killings, rape and arson — against the African population.

More than two years of conflict in Darfur has killed at least 180,000 people, many from war-induced hunger.