US fears catastrophe in Darfur, demands immediate access
By Arshad Mohammed
WASHINGTON, April 27 (Reuters) – U.S. officials said on Tuesday they fear a humanitarian catastrophe in western Sudan if Khartoum keeps aid workers from giving food to people driven from their homes by marauding government-backed militias.
The officials said they must have access to the Darfur region by June, when rains will make it impossible to deliver food, medicine and shelter to about 900,000 internal refugees. Another 100,000 people are believed to have fled to neighboring Chad.
Sudan has refused visas to 28 U.S. Agency for International Development officials to visit Darfur, where U.S. officials say government-backed Arab militias have been conducting “ethnic cleansing” against black Africans.
“Sanitary conditions are terrible. Disease is beginning to spread. The child mortality rates are rising at an alarming rate, and we are facing a deadline. And the deadline are the rains,” USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios told reporters.
“If we do not have this resolved by the end of June, we are going to face a catastrophic situation by the fall,” he added, saying rains would prevent the large-scale transport of food.
U.S. President George W. Bush on April 7 accused the government-backed Arab militias of committing “atrocities.”
U.S. officials said they had seen reports of women raped and branded and of militias burning villages to the ground and destroying irrigation systems to keep people from returning to farms. Thousands are believed to have died in the violence.
‘ETHNIC CLEANSING GOING ON’
“There is a clear pattern of ethnic cleansing going on,” Natsios said.
Khartoum and the rebels signed a 45-day cease-fire deal on April 8 and agreed to give relief groups access to the arid region.
Washington accuses the government of failing to stick to the agreement and demands it allow aid workers in, respect the cease-fire, disarm the militias, and give travel permits to aid workers to visit camps for displaced people.
Natsios said he did not know why Sudan was refusing access but he cited an unconfirmed report by a human rights group that the government may be seeking to “move mass graves … to disguise some of the events that took place.”
While U.S. officials have demanded for months that Khartoum stop attacks by the militias, Washington has little leverage over Sudan, already subject to restrictive U.S. sanctions.
Sudan is on the State Department’s list of “state sponsors of terrorism,” which bars it from receiving U.S. arms exports, controls sales of items with military and civilian applications, limits U.S. aid and requires Washington to vote against loans from international financial institutions.
The Bush administration has said it will not normalize relations with Sudan until it signs a peace agreement to end a separate two-decade civil war with rebels in the south of the country and until it resolves the situation in Darfur.
USAID Assistant Administrator Roger Winter said the United States could seek sanctions from the U.N. Security Council.
“I don’t want to prejudge what action we would seek or call for because, again, we are hoping for positive action on the part of the government of Sudan, but we’re not prepared to wait indefinitely for that,” Winter said.