George Clooney cuts Darfur trip short

January 22, 2008 (KHARTOUM) — George Clooney cut short his first trip as a U.N. “messenger of peace” and flew home from Darfur after falling ill, U.N. sources said on Tuesday.

The Oscar-winning actor, who has been appointed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to promote U.N. peacekeeping efforts, had been in Darfur for two days.

He was also forced to cancel a visit to neighbouring Chad, where the violence in western Sudan has spread.

“He got sick and returned to Khartoum,” a source in the U.N. mission said. U.N. spokesmen declined to comment.

Clooney’s outspoken views on the conflict in Darfur, which he has called genocide, prompted the United Nations to keep his visit low-key. Interview requests were turned down and media were not allowed to film him.

Clooney came down with fever and a bad stomach, returned to Khartoum and cancelled the second part of his trip to Chad, the sources said. He flew out of Sudan on Tuesday morning.

The actor and his father travelled to Chad, now host to 240,000 Darfur refugees, in 2006.

Fighting in Darfur began in 2003, when mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms against a central government they accused of neglect. To quell the revolt, Khartoum mobilised mainly Arab Janjaweed militia, who now stand accused of atrocities.

Washington called the conflict genocide in 2004, a term European governments are reluctant to use and which Khartoum rejects.

(Reuters)