French envoy signs aid deal for war-torn Sudan
KHARTOUM, June 22 (AFP) — Senior French foreign ministry envoy Renaud Muselier signed an agreement to donate three million euros (3.6 million dollars) in French aid to war-torn Sudan, during a meeting with Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir on Tuesday.
The agreement, signed between the French and Sudanese governments and the UN World Food Programme, will channel one million euros to the western region of Darfur, one million to the south and the third to support school feeding.
“France is concerned about the ongoing efforts to bring about peace in Sudan,” Muselier told an AFP correspondant after the meeting.
Khartoum and rebels from the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) are soon to sign a peace accord to end 20 years of civil war in southern Sudan that has claimed some 1.5 million lives and displaced four million people.
On Monday, in Darfur, Sudan’s other war-torn region which lies in the west of the country near Chad, Muselier toured the Mornay camp where Sudanese authorities say 100,000 people have taken shelter from the separate conflict there.
“The situation is as dangerous as we thought,” Muselier told AFP after his visit.
Commenting on his meeting with Beshir, the French envoy said he had stressed the need to implement agreements signed in Chad to end the conflict in Darfur “and to eliminate all problems related to the practices of the janjawid (militias) and to create conditions that will allow displaced people to return to their homes as soon as possible.
“These are urgent matters, especially because the rainy season is about to begin,” the envoy said.
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said Monday that Khartoum-backed Sudanese janjawid militias, acused of conducting “ethnic cleansing” in Darfur, were terrorising the Mornay camp.
War broke out in Darfur in February 2003 when black African rebel groups, complaining of economic neglect of their region and a lack of protection for local people, rose up against the Sudanese government.
Clashes between the Sudanese army and the rebels in Darfur have left at least 10,000 people dead and forced more than a million from their homes, according to UN estimates.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Muselier and Beshir discussed the situation in Darfur, the Sudanese peace process and the cooperation between Paris and Khartoum for development in the postwar period, French and Sudanese sources said.
Muselier is to meet SPLA leader John Garang on Wednesday.