UN’s Annan hails Sudan moves on Darfur aid
UNITED NATIONS, 23 May 2004 (AP) — UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on Friday welcomed Sudan’s announcement easing aid access to its Darfur region, which UN officials have called the worst humanitarian situation in the world.
“The secretary-general trusts that these measures will be implemented immediately, so that more than one million people affected by the crisis in Darfur can receive the aid they so urgently need,” Annan’s spokesman Fred Eckhard said.
Annan also called on donors to respond to appeals for aid for Darfur and the refugees in Chad. President Omar Bashir visited the region earlier this week and urged citizens to return home, promising that calm had returned since a cease-fire was signed last month and denying claims of ethnic cleansing.
Sudan has eased restrictions on humanitarian groups trying to assist in the troubled region of Darfur, according to a joint statement released by the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs.
The United Nations and a number of aid organizations have complained of rejections or delays in receiving travel permits to Darfur, where more than a year of fighting has displaced almost 1 million people and led to a major humanitarian crisis.
“The government has decided to grant those working with the United Nations, the donors, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and non-governmental organizations an entry visa within 48 hours of depositing their application with the Sudanese diplomatic missions,” Friday’s statement said.
The visas will be valid for three months, it said. The move was part of an effort “to facilitate the missions of the partners working in the humanitarian domain.”
The statement said the new measure recognized the needs of the Darfur citizens for humanitarian assistance and hoped that the aid would enable many to return home.
Meanwhile, health authorities in southern Sudan have reported 15 cases, including four deaths, of a mystery illness similar to deadly Ebola hemorrhagic fever, the World Health Organization said Friday.
WHO has sent a team of experts to Yambio, a Sudanese town near the border with Congo, to investigate and monitor the outbreak. Laboratory tests by the Kenya Medical Research Institute and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have confirmed an Ebola-like infection in 10 of the 15 cases, WHO said in a statement in Nairobi.
Dr. Abdullahi Ahmed, head of WHO’s southern Sudan office, told The Associated Press that the preliminary tests indicate that the illness is in the “family of Ebola.” But so far the death rate is lower than has previously been experienced with Ebola outbreaks, he added.