Slovene president presents Darfur humanitarian action
Feb 14, 2006 (LJUBLJANA) — President Janez Drnovsek and several Slovene humanitarian organizations presented on Tuesday a joint humanitarian action, “World for Darfur”, which is to help provide supplies for a refugee camp for 10,000 people in this troubled western province of Sudan.
Drnovsek used the opportunity to stress that the rebel groups in the province must first be united in order to solve the Darfur crisis.
According to the Slovene STA, his envoy Tomo Kriznar, who is currently in Darfur, has informed him that it has come to further conflicts between individual rebel groups which have already claimed numerous lives.
Drnovsek therefore does not believe that representatives of the Sudanese government and rebel groups will meet for peace talks in Germany this weekend, as he himself proposed.
The president furthermore expects the world to help ensure safety to the people and humanitarian workers in the province. He hopes he still has the support of the Slovene government.
The president also discussed the Darfur crisis with the head of the Sudan Federal Democratic Party, Ahmed Diraige, who expressed support for his initiative, labelling it as very important.
Diraige moreover said that Drnovsek is the only president who directly called on his citizens to help people in a crisis, which has already left 2.5 million people homeless.
With the humanitarian action for Darfur, launched at Drnovsek’s initiative, Red Cross of Slovenia, Slovene Caritas, Unicef Slovenia and the Foundation Together would like to call on the public to act and help other international organization in Darfur.
The organizations plan to provide help for the refugee centre Hamidi in the west of Darfur, where more than 8,000 families from 70 surrounding villages have already found refuge.
(ST)