Oxfam denies call for sanctions against Sudan’s Bashir

October 20, 2007 (LISBON) — Humanitarian organisation Oxfam denied Saturday a report that it had called for sanctions against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, notably exclusion from a summit of European and African leaders.

“Oxfam was in no way associated with this position,” Oxfam’s head of public policy and advocacy Jo Leadbeater told AFP.

Oxfam was included in the call along with human rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in a report by Portuguese news agency LUSA cited by Agence France-Presse.

The rights groups reportedly said Bashir should be barred from the summit to be held in Portugal in December, foreign bank accounts held by Bashir and other Sudanese leaders frozen and sanctions applied against the Khartoum government.

According to the United Nations at least 200,000 people have been killed and more than two million displaced in the conflict in Sudan’s western Darfur region that has spawned what aid groups describe as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

(AFP)