Sudan recognises the humanitarian crisis in Dafur, not the rights violation

KHARTOUM, Sudan, April 24, 2004 (AP) — Sudan on Saturday acknowledged the dire humanitarian situation in western Darfur province but said the country isn’t violating human rights and has nothing to hide from a U.N. team visiting the region.

Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail said he met with a delegation from U.N. Human Rights Commission before it left for Darfur, where thousands have been killed and displaced in a year of fighting between rebels and the government.

“I told them they are free to go anywhere in the region. And whatever the outcome of their tour, they will find that Sudan has nothing to hide,” Ismail said in a press briefing.

The U.N. team will spend at least three days meeting with officials and visiting camps and areas where displaced persons are located.

Ismail repeated the government’s denial of allegations that it and allied militia have been waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing and village destruction in Darfur.

“If you ask me whether there are human rights violation in Darfur, I would say yes, there are, but not on the level of ethnic cleansing or genocide,” he said. “There are human rights violation in the sense of lack of medical treatment, of forcing people out of their homes, of lack of food and insecurity. These exist just like any in other country, including the United States.”

The minister has accused some European countries of double standards, saying they focus on Sudan but ignore what is going on in Iraq and the occupied Arab territories.

Friday, the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva voted to express concern about the overall situation in Darfur, but it stopped short of formally condemning Sudan .

Thousands of people are believed to have died since early 2003 when rebels in Darfur took up arms to fight for autonomy and greater state aid in the neglected province. An estimated 110,000 Sudanese have fled to Chad and hundreds of thousands of others are internally displaced.