UN Security Council concerned over Sudan
By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer
UNITED NATIONS, may 26, 2004 (AP) — The U.N. Security Council called for the immediate deployment of international monitors to Sudan’s western Darfur region and put new pressure on the country’s government to end a conflict there that has killed thousands and sparked a humanitarian crisis.
The statement adopted by the council’s 15 member states on Tuesday expresses deep concern over the ethnic violence in Darfur. It is not legally binding but it carries moral weight and puts new pressure on Sudan to end the violence.
“This is a chance for Sudan to become part of the solution instead of being part of the problem,” U.S. Deputy Ambassador Stuart Holliday said, adding that the council has already seen some results. The Sudanese government announced last week that it was easing restriction on humanitarian groups in Darfur.
Aid agencies say Sudan’s Arab-dominated government is providing support to Arab militiamen accused of waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing against black Africans in the Darfur region.
Sudan President Omar el-Bashir denies the government is involved and rejects the description of the violence as ethnic cleansing, saying the militia is defending itself against rebels.
The aid group Oxfam warned Monday that thousands of people in the region face disease and starvation over the next three months as food and fresh water supplies run dangerously low.
The U.S. Agency for International Development airlifted 20,000 blankets to the area Tuesday but said fighting was hampering the flow of assistance.
The agency said the flight was the fifth humanitarian delivery to arrive in Nyala in South Darfur over the past week. The first four contained 2,500 rolls of plastic sheeting from U.S. stockpiles in Dubai, enough to provide shelter for nearly 160,000 people.
“The council expresses its grave concern over the deteriorating humanitarian and human rights situation in the Darfur region of Sudan,” the 15-nation council said in a presidential statement.
The conflict in Darfur is separate from a 21-year civil war between the Sudanese government and a southern-based rebel movement, in which an estimated 2 million people died. A peace agreement to end that conflict was expected to be signed Wednesday in Kenya.
The Security Council statement also “strongly condemns” attacks on civilians, sexual violence, forced displacement and “acts of violence, especially those with an ethnic dimension, and demands that those responsible be held accountable.”
The council urged all parties to observe a cease-fire agreement reached last month and called on the Sudanese government and opposition groups to “facilitate the immediate deployment of monitors in Darfur and to ensure their free movement.”
The international monitoring force will have about 40 members from the African Union, the European Union, the United States, France and neighboring Chad, Holliday said in an interview, adding that 10 people would be ready for immediate deployment.
The fighting between Arab militias and the black African population in Darfur broke out in February 2003 and has left more than 1 million people homeless, creating what U.N. officials have described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
Earlier this month, the New York-based Human Rights Watch likened the situation in Darfur to the beginning of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, when at least 500,000 people were slaughtered by a government-backed, extremist militia. The international community was widely criticized for not intervening to stop the bloodshed.
The Security Council on Tuesday called on the Sudanese government to assist in the voluntary and safe return of refugees to their homes and to allow full, unimpeded access by humanitarian workers to anybody in need of assistance.
The statement also asked U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to keep the council informed “on the humanitarian and human rights crisis as it unfolds, and, as necessary, to make recommendations.”