Darfur crisis could turn infinitely worse – UN humanitarian chief
Nov 18, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — The crisis in Darfur could become “infinitely worse” if a key deal reached this week to send a mixed United Nations and African force to the war-torn region is not applied quickly, the U.N. chief of humanitarian affairs said Saturday.
“This is the moment of truth for Darfur,” U.N. Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland told reporters in the Sudanese capital. “We are playing with a powder keg, it could get infinitely worse.”
More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced by three years of fighting in the vast, arid Darfur region of western Sudan. An ill-equipped African Union mission has achieved little in preventing the violence from worsening.
U.N. chief Kofi Annan and his AU counterpart Alpha Oumar Konare reached an agreement with Sudanese envoys on Thursday for a mixed U.N.-AU force of some 20,000 peacekeepers to deploy in Darfur.
Egeland, who said the ability for aid workers to conduct their humanitarian mission was “crumbling” because of the violence, hoped the agreement reached in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa would finally allow “an effective international force” to deploy.
Sudanese officials have sent mixed signals about whether the government would stick to the deal their envoys agreed to in Addis Ababa, some officials questioning the nature of the “hybrid” U.N. and African force due to deploy.
But Sudans Foreign Minister Lam Akol said his government had not committed to a mixed peacekeeping mission.
“What we have agreed upon is that the force should remain African and it be assisted by the United Nations,” Akol told reporters on Saturday. “There is no way the main fighting force would be a mixed one.”
Other officials have stated the notion of a mixed force was not an issue as long as it was clear the leadership and the strongest contingent would remain African.
The mixed messages from Sudan’s political leadership may be an effort to not appear to be backing down in the face of Western pressure and making a dramatic policy change after months of vehement opposition to any U.N. peacekeeping in Darfur.
Egeland said he was confident all parties involved would soon reach a final agreement.
“What I see out of Addis is funds, resources and the command structure being handled by the U.N. with a strong African component,” Egeland said.
He said he was confident all parties involved would soon reach a final agreement.
“I have no reason to disbelieve the sincerity of the Sudanese negotiators in Addis,” Egeland said. But he warned Darfurians were dying on a daily basis and hoped time would not be wasted “wrangling on words.”
He said Darfur’s crisis had worsened and that there were now more than 4 million people depending on international aid to survive.
Egeland, who was on his last mission to Sudan before his term as U.N. humanitarian chief ends in December, said Sudanese authorities had barred him from accessing four of the six destinations that had been agreed upon in Darfur. He also said he was ending his trip early.
A joint Sudanese army and pro-government janjaweed militia attack killed several civilians in the Jebel Marra mountain range late Friday, hours after he was barred from going there, Egeland said. He did not specify how many people had died in this rebel stronghold.
Egeland also hoped that the implementation of the agreement reached in Addis Ababa would be used “to turn the corner to something better” in the relations between Khartoum and humanitarian workers.
Sudanese government officials were threatening to ban any aid group or U.N. agency from working in Darfur next year, said Egeland, who stated that “the international right to humanitarian access is being ignored in Darfur.”
More than US$1 billion (A0.78 billion) are being spent in humanitarian aid to Darfur this year, he said, stating that the single largest donor was the United States.
“The jury is really out now. Is the largest humanitarian effort on earth going to collapse or succeed?” he asked.
(AP)