Sudan cancels U.N. envoy trip to dam protest site

March, 1, 2008 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan has refused to allow a U.N. human rights envoy to visit an area north of the capital where police shot protesters last year, citing security concerns, the world body said on Saturday.

Sudanese police killed four people in June during a protest against plans to build a new dam in Kajbar in the Northern State, around 200 km (125 miles) north of Khartoum.

Sima Samar, the U.N. human rights special rapporteur for Sudan, was scheduled to travel to the area over the weekend as part of an official visit to the country.

“The visit was not approved by the government which cited security concerns by the state authorities,” Khaled Mansour, director of public information for the U.N. mission in Sudan, told Reuters.

Sudanese Justice Minister Abdel Basit Sabderat declined to comment.

Sima, a former Afghan deputy prime minister, has served as the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Sudan since 2005. She has reported war crimes by Sudanese forces and their allied militia in the troubled Darfur region.

Mansour said Samar was also set to visit Port Sudan on the Red Sea and the war-ravaged region of Darfur in the west.

International experts estimate some 200,000 have died and 2.5 million have been forced to flee their homes since the conflict flared in 2003 when rebels took up arms against the central government, accusing it of neglecting the region.

The United States calls the violence a genocide. Sudan rejects this and says only 9,000 people have lost their lives.

(Reuters)