UN humanitarian chief says barred from Darfur camp
March 24, 2007 (El-FASHER) — U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes said he was barred from a camp for people displaced by the violence in western Sudan on Saturday as international pressure mounted for new U.N. sanctions.
“I am frustrated and angry. I find this extraordinary but it illustrates the difficulties we are facing,” Holmes said on his return to the regional capital, El-Fasher.
He said his team had received advance permission to visit the camp and had notified the Khartoum government over the incident, which ended with a guard seizing a tape from a U.N. cameraman as they prepared to leave.
U.N. spokeswoman Dawn Blalock said the Sudanese authorities had apologised to Holmes over what it called an individual incident and said he would face no problems visiting another camp for the displaced in Darfur on Sunday.
Holmes accepted the apology, she said.
Last year Sudan, which denies genocide, hindered a visit to a refugee camp by Holmes’ predecessor, Jan Egeland, who was instrumental in bringing the Darfur crisis to the attention of the U.N. Security Council in 2004.
With few signs of relief for the people of Darfur, Sudan, which has blocked plans to deploy U.N. peacekeepers, now faces pressure for new international sanctions over its Darfur policy.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has urged fellow European leaders, who met in Berlin on Saturday, to back targeted U.N. sanctions against the Sudanese government over a conflict which has caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
In an open letter to several European newspapers, 10 prominent European intellectuals also called for tough sanctions, accusing the 27 EU leaders, meeting to celebrate the bloc’s 50th birthday, of cowardice.
SUDAN LAMBASTS U.S., BRITAIN
“How dare we Europeans celebrate this weekend while on a continent some few miles to the south of us the most defenceless, dispossessed and weak are murdered in Sudan?” the intellectuals wrote.
Washington calls the violence genocide and blames Khartoum for backing militias blamed for many of the worst atrocities.
Sudan on Saturday again denied genocide was taking place and lambasted Britain and the United States for seeking sanctions, saying if diplomacy broke down Sudan could end up like Somalia, in anarchy since a 1991 coup ended central rule.
“Britain is talking about the international pressure on Sudan, but it’s not coming from Russia, not China, not the Arab world, not any Asian countries, it is just Britain and America,” Al-Samani Al-Wasiyla, Sudanese minister of state for foreign relations, told reporters in Kenya.
Al-Wasiyla denied reports Khartoum was using bureaucratic obstacles against aid organisations in Darfur, the world’s largest humanitarian operation, or that agencies were working in an ever-shrinking area.
“No, the area is not diminishing, not at all. We help NGOs reach the destination of their operations and offer them full protection,” he said.
Residents of the Abu Shouk camp in north Darfur seemed resigned to life in their sprawling desert base, which is home to 54,000 people.
“We can’t leave here because we’re scared of the Janjaweed and we have no work to go back to,” Latifa Youssef, who said she had seen militiamen shoot her father in her village, told Reuters.
Abdullah Babikamali, 18, also spoke of killing, rape and pillaging by militias who invaded his village on horses and camels, backed by Sudanese military aircraft bombing raids.
(Reuters)