UN Special envoy arrives to Chad to check on prospects for peace in Darfur, needs of Sudanese refugees
By ABAKAR SALEH Associated Press Writer
N’DJAMENA, Chad, Jan 08, 2004 (AP) — The U.N. special envoy for humanitarian issues in Sudan has arrived in neighboring Chad on a six-day visit to gauge prospects for settling the conflict in Sudan’s western Darfur region that has forced tens of thousands of refugees into eastern Chad.
Tom Eric Vraalsen, who arrived in N’Djamena late Wednesday, plans to inquire what the government of President Idriss Deby was doing about pursuing its mediation of peace talks between rebels of the Sudan Liberation Army and the Sudanese government, Isabelle Assingar, spokeswoman for United Nations operations in Chad, said in a statement.
She said Vraalsen, who plans to travel to remote eastern Chad where as many as 90,000 refugees are living in precarious conditions, will assess the humanitarian needs in order to appeal for assistance from the international community.
A statement issued at U.N. headquarters in New York on Wednesday said Vraalsen would ask both Chad and Sudan to give U.N. agencies and international groups more access to the refugees.
Deby had been personally mediating the talks that broke down last Dec. 16 over what Interior Minister Abderahmane Moussa at the time called “unacceptable rebel demands.”
The independent weekly Le Progres reported Thursday that 16 members of Sudanese government-sponsored militia known in Arabic as “janjaweed” were killed Dec. 29 in a clash with Chadian government troops near the Chadian border town of Agam. One Chadian officer was also killed. Two days later, the newspaper said, Chadian army troops repulsed another Sudanese militia incursion near Am-Djerima, another border town.
Chad brokered a cease-fire between the Sudanese government and the SLA on Sept. 3 that was extended at a Nov. 4 meeting and was to have been formalized at the Dec. 16 talks.
Although Moussa did not elaborate on rebel demands that led to the breakdown, it is believed the SLA wanted other rebel groups, particularly the Justice and Equality Movement, included in the cease-fire.
The SLA has been calling for self-determination for Darfur and has been fighting government troops and the militia since February. The militiamen are drawn from Sudan’s Muslim, Arab population. The rebels in Darfur, although Muslim, are black Africans, often of mixed Arabic ancestry, from the Fur, Massalit and Zaghawa groups that live on both sides of the border.
Deby, his political allies and his presidential guard are all Zaghawas, a situation that complicates his mediation.
In a December 2003 report, the International Crisis Group, a conflict think tank, cited numerous reports of looting and killings in Darfur carried out by the militias.