Sudanese official rejects need for U.S. aid team to visit troubled Darfur region
KHARTOUM, Sudan, April 28, 2004 (AP) — A Sudanese official has rejected the need for a U.S. aid delegation to visit the country’s troubled Darfur region, where more than 1 million people have been forced from their homes by fighting between rebels.
Gotbi el-Mahadi, an adviser to Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir, said in comments published Wednesday that a high-level U.N. delegation that arrived in the capital, Khartoum, Tuesday to visit Darfur was all that was currently needed.
“We do not need such a (U.S.) visit at this time…(while) a United Nations delegation is to tour Darfur,” el-Mahadi said according to a statement released by the official Sudanese Media Center Wednesday.
In Washington on Tuesday, Andrew S. Natsios, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said the U.S. was waiting for Sudan ‘s Foreign Ministry to issue visas to a 28-member U.S. disaster response team standing by in Washington and Nairobi, Kenya, to visit Darfur.
Sudanese authorities hadn’t processed the visas as of Wednesday, USAID officials said.
A USAID spokesman in Washington, Luke Zahner, said more international aid organizations, not less, should be allowed into Darfur to assist people at need.
“This is the largest humanitarian crisis facing the world today and as a result, every possible humanitarian effort needs to be made to fend off a greater crisis,” Zahner told The Associated Press in Egypt by telephone.
Zahner added: “Granting access to one authority or another isn’t the solution to a crisis of this scale.”
Natsios Tuesday said a conflict between Arab militias called the Janjaweed and non-Arab rebel groups has left thousands dead and displaced 900,000 refugees in Darfur’s three states.
Another 100,000 have fled into neighboring Chad.
USAID says the conflict is no longer between nomadic herders and settled farmers but has evolved into a rebellion, putting rebels seeking greater autonomy against Sudanese government-backed militias.
Darfur, a largely desert area, is home to one-fifth of Sudan ‘s 30 million people.
“The number of dead is unclear at this point but it is in the thousands,” Natsios told reporters. “There have been reports of as many as 30,000 dead. We cannot confirm that.”
Sudan ‘s government signed a 45-day cease-fire with the rebels on April 8.
A U.N. team led by James Morris, executive director of the World Food Program, is expected to spend three days in Darfur this week researching humanitarian needs.