US welcomes Sudan visas decision but renews complaints of Darfur truce violations
WASHINGTON, April 29 (AFP) — The United States welcomed Sudan’s decision to grant visas to a US disaster relief team after days of delay but renewed demands that Khartoum act to stop pro-government militias from staging attacks in the troubled western Darfur region.
“This is a positive move,” deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said of the visa approvals, which came only after days of persistent complaints from Washington that the Sudanese government was intentionally hindering aid efforts in Darfur.
“We would urge the government of Sudan to issue the visas expeditiously so that our experts can begin to address the situation in Darfur,” he said. “We don’t see any reason for unnecessary delays.”
Ereli confirmed that Sudan had informed US diplomats in Khartoum that visas for the 28-member team would be approved as soon as a visiting high-level UN assessment team now in Darfur completes its work.
On Wednesday, the State Department had denounced as “unacceptable” Sudan’s continued refusal to grant the visas and said Khartoum had done little or nothing in response to repeated international appeals to permit relief workers to travel to the region, where a year-old war is estimated to have killed 10,000 people and uprooted a million more.
Although Ereli said the visa decision was welcome, he repeated US concerns that pro-government militias in Darfur, known as Janjawid, were violating a three-week-old humanitarian ceasefire and continued to attack displaced civilians in the region.
“We believe (there) are credible reports of continuing attacks by the Janjawid of innocent civilians in the Darfur area and reiterate our calls on the government of Sudan to rein in the Janjawid and stop all civilian attacks immediately.” he said.
Earlier, an official in neighboring Chad accused the Sudanese government of continuing to back the Arab militias and said the Janjawid had attacked a town inside Chad, killing one civilian and wounding many others, in violation of the truce.
Under the terms of the deal signed in the Chadian capital, the parties agreed to cease hostilities, guarantee safe passage for humanitarian aid to the stricken region, free prisoners of war and disarm militias blamed for much of the violence.
The agreement, the third to call for a ceasefire following two short-lived truces, was signed by the Sudanese government and two rebel groups — the JEM and the Sudan Liberation Movement.
The United Nations has accused the Janjawid of ethnic cleansing in Darfur, where rebels rose up in February 2003, accusing the Arab-Muslim government in Khartoum of backing ruthless militias and neglecting their region, peopled mainly by black Africans.