UNICEF official: al-Bashir will protect Darfur civilians

KHARTOUM, June 15, 2004 (dpa) — Sudanese President Omer Hassan al-Bashir on Tuesday promised his government would ensure basic services to civilians in Darfur, according to UNICEF’s top official Carol Bellamy.

Bellamy, who met with al-Bashir in Khartoum, said that she urged al-Bashir to ensure safe passage for humanitarian workers to the region and to protect civilians, although the president noted that many displaced people in Western Sudan were not willing to return home due to the insecure situation.

The ethnic conflict in Western Sudan, which has overshadowed the settlement of another conflict in the country’s south, has displaced up to one million people as government-backed Janjaweed militia attacked black Moslem rebels in the region.

Last week, 16 humanitarian workers who had been abducted by the Sudan Liberation Movement rebel group in the Darfur region were finally released. The rebels and the government had promised last month during meetings in Geneva to allow humanitarian staff free movement in Darfur.

Bellamy said the issue of displacement, while still taking place, was not on the same large scale as in the previous months.

Bellamy, who is the executive director of the United Nations Children and Education Fund (UNICEF), said the U.N. group would work in partnership with the Sudanese government to address humanitarian needs.

She urged the international community to urgently assist in averting the humanitarian disaster expected to overcome the region as the rainy season begins.

In remarks to reporters, Bellamy said it was a “race against time” to provide children and their families with basic life-saving services such as clean water and sanitation, nutrition, shelter and health care facilities.

Bellamy congratulated al-Bashir on last month’s progress in ending more than 20 years civil war between the south and north Sudan.