United Nations must do more to solve Sudan crisis: Canada

OTTAWA, June 13 (Reuters) – The U.N. Security Council must take more aggressive measures to prevent a humanitarian disaster in Sudan’s Darfur region, where more than a million people are at risk, Canadian Foreign Minister Bill Graham said on Sunday.

Graham told Reuters that Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations would call on the council on Monday to take stronger action over the crisis.

Fighting in the remote western area of Sudan has affected two million people and driven 158,000 people across the border into Chad, creating what the United Nations has said is one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Humanitarian groups say the fighting has blocked the delivery of much-needed aid.

“We believe the Security Council has to be more aggressive. There is no doubt that war crimes and crimes against humanity are taking place in the region. … The Security Council can’t ignore this any longer,” Graham said in a telephone interview.

A resolution adopted unanimously by the 15-nation council on Friday called for urgent efforts to resolve the conflict but did not commit the United Nations to take any action.

A senior U.N. official said on Sunday she had “credible information” that Sudanese forces and government-backed Arab militias had carried out summary executions of civilians in the Darfur region.

“Putting a spotlight on the issue could enable the Security Council to ensure more attention was paid to the need to get aid into the area,” Graham said, adding that if nothing were done the crisis would turn into “a global emergency”.

Rights groups have accused the government of arming the Arab janjaweed militias to drive out African villagers from their homes, in what U.N. officials have said is a campaign of ethnic cleansing. The government calls the janjaweed outlaws and denies any link.

Last Wednesday the British overseas aid minister said the United Nations had reacted too slowly to events in Darfur.