Senior UN envoy to monitor progress on Sudan’s Darfur region

NAIROBI, July 15, 2004 (IRIN) — A top UN envoy is to hold talks with Sudanese
leaders on progress made since Khartoum and the UN signed a joint
communiqué under which Sudan’s government pledged to improve security and
facilitate access by aid workers to people affected by conflict in the
western region of Darfur.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan dispatched his Special Representative to
Sudan, Jan Pronk, to participate in the first meeting of the Joint
Implementation Mechanism, which was set up on 3 July, UN spokeswoman Marie
Okabe said on Wednesday. Pronk was scheduled to travel to Khartoum on
Thursday.

His visit comes against a background of continuing insecurity in Darfur,
with UN humanitarian agencies reporting violent clashes between government
forces and two rebel groups, as well as inter-ethnic fighting, UN News
reported.

It said that in Southern Darfur, the UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs had recently noted an increasing presence of Arab
militias known as the Janjawid. Allied to the Sudanese government, the
Janjawid stand accused of attacking indigenous African villagers, burning
their homes and killing or raping many civilians.

Briefing reporters in New York, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian
Affairs Jan Egeland said his worst fear was that the insecurity would
continue to worsen and possibly force aid agencies to withdraw staff for
their own safety.

“Our trucks are looted, our humanitarian workers are threatened and
attacked, and that’s not necessarily only the fault of the government.
There are many militias and other forces” in the region, he said.

Egeland said the Sudanese government had generally improved humanitarian
access to Darfur by lifting obstacles, as it had promised to do in the
communiqué signed after talks between Annan and senior government
ministers.

In that declaration, Khartoum said it would lift humanitarian restrictions
and also take measures to end the impunity with which people have
perpetrated human rights abuses in Darfur. The UN said it would provide
urgent aid relief and play its part in any peace efforts.

Meanwhile, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned that poor sanitation
meant that tens of thousands of children across Darfur were at high risk
of contracting cholera and other waterborne diseases.

More than half the estimated one million internally displaced persons in
Darfur now had access to clean water, but UNICEF officials said the agency
needed to step up the pace of latrine construction to avoid serious
hygiene problems, especially since the rainy season had arrived.

In a related development, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on
Africa, Mohamed Sahnoun, was scheduled to participate in a separate
political dialogue on resolving the Darfur conflict in the Ethiopian
capital, Addis Ababa, on Thursday.