Relief worker pullout threatens Darfur aid
Dec 15, 2006 (LONDON) — Security fears have forced aid agencies to pull out 650 staff from war-torn western Sudan and Chad, disrupting supplies to hundreds of thousands of people, they warned.
Oxfam International, Norwegian Refugee Council, Goal and other agencies said they have temporarily evacuated more than 250 workers from Darfur and another 400 from just across the border in Chad in the last two weeks.
Oxfam, speaking on behalf of these and several other agencies, said a mix of international, Sudanese and Chadian aid workers were redeployed to safer areas of Sudan and Chad, awaiting for security to improve.
In Darfur, aid workers have faced escalating fighting or attacks on staff as well as theft of vehicles, it said. In Chad, 25 staff have suffered serious attacks and the warehouses of three aid agencies have been looted.
“If the deterioration is allowed to continue, the impact on civilians could be devastating,” Paul Smith-Lomas, regional director for Oxfam, said in a statement on behalf of the agencies.
The statement said food, water, medical and other basic supplies risk being disrupted to around 480,000 people in Sudan and another 310,000 people in Chad — 220,000 of them Sudanese refugees and 90,000 displaced Chadians.
Though the relief workers redeployed to safer areas in Sudan are a fraction of the total 13,000, they have been removed from key camps, including one where there are 500,000 people, a spokeswoman for Oxfam told AFP.
In Chad, she added, around 40 percent of the total staff of 1,200 Chadian and 130 international staff have been redeployed from vulnerable bases and camps.
“We’re absolutely committed to going back in as soon as security improves,” the Oxfam spokeswoman told AFP.
In the first week of December, agencies said they withdrew significant numbers of staff from five major areas of Darfur: El Fasher and Kutum in North Darfur; El Daein and Shearia in South Darfur; and Kulbus in West Darfur.
Roland van Hauwermeiren, Oxfam’s country program manager in Chad, said: “Though some aid is continuing to reach people, unless we can get back in soon, the situation will start to deteriorate rapidly.”
The agencies — which also include Concern Worldwide, International Rescue Committee (IRC) and World Vision — called on the Sudanese government and rebel groups to agree an urgent ceasefire with immediate effect.
Britain and the United States have discussed the option of imposing a no-fly zone over Darfur if Khartoum fails to halt a resurgence of violence against civilians there.
International efforts to send a hybrid force of United Nations and African Union peacekeepers have faced Sudanese government resistance.
The war in Darfur erupted in February 2003 when rebels from minority tribes took up arms to demand an equal share of national resources, prompting a heavy-handed crackdown from the Sudanese government forces and proxy militia called Janjaweed.
(AFP)