Aid chief urges faster, stronger action on Darfur
By Jeremy Lovell
LONDON, July 26 (Reuters) – Homeless children are dying in Darfur as the world responds too slowly and too weakly to Sudan’s huge crisis, leaving thousands more people at risk, a top aid worker said on Monday.
“Things are slowly improving, but too slowly, and the scale of response is still not adequate … There is still a massive need to help these people and it hasn’t materialised yet,” said Rowan Gillies, head of medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres.
As efforts to help victims gathered pace and a rare aid flight reached the area, the European Union urged the United Nations to consider sanctions on Sudan — although Security Council splits have so far hampered similar U.S. efforts.
Rights groups say Sudan’s government backs Arab militias known as Janjaweed, whom Darfur’s rebels accuse of looting and burning African villages in a campaign of ethnic cleansing.
Many countries demand Khartoum disarm the horseback militia and have disregarded official denials of involvement.
The United Nations estimates some 30,000 people have been killed and over a million driven from their homes since fighting erupted last year — just as efforts to end another decades-old conflict in southern Sudan bore fruit.
It calls Darfur the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
Gillies said after a trip there that many children were sick and dying in camps for people driven from their homes.
“There are pockets where the situation has improved for people in camps, but certainly the places where I was working I was treating children dying from respiratory infections,” he said in London.
“There is the potential for significant numbers of deaths due to malnutrition or epidemics.”
British-based Oxfam flew water-purifying and sanitation equipment for a camp of 60,000 people in to the southern Darfur town of Nyala on Monday, only the charity’s third plane to reach the remote area of Africa’s largest country.
Tens of thousands of Darfur refugees have also fled across the border into Chad.
DIPLOMATIC PRESSURE
EU foreign ministers called on the United Nations “to pass a resolution, with a view to taking further action, including imposing sanctions, in case the government of Sudan does not immediately fulfil its obligations”.
They said Khartoum had taken no “real and provable steps” to disarm Arab militia accused of mounting a scorched-earth policy against the black Africans in the arid western region that the U.S. Congress has branded genocide.
A U.S.-drafted resolution seeking to threaten oil-producing Sudan with sanctions remains stalled by China and Russia — two of the Security Council’s five veto-wielding permanent members.
The EU said Sudan’s Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail promised in weekend talks to implement an agreement with the United Nations, without giving details.
Ismail said on Monday some 100 Janjaweed members had been arrested, Khartoum was making “serious efforts” to sort the situation out and there had been progress over safety and aid.
“We are doing what is right and we will continue to do what is right,” he said.
Ismail said U.S. politicians spoke of genocide to woo votes.
“Deputies of both parties are targeting the vote of black Americans,” he said. “The African Union has concluded there is no question of genocide. I have more confidence in its judgment.”
AFRICAN UNION EFFORTS ON HOLD
The pan-African body said it was still trying to revive stalled peace talks between the government and rebels, and to send ceasefire observers to Darfur, despite delays.
“There is no plan to hold a peace meeting on Darfur this week but the AU is not giving up,” a spokesman said.
Rebels of the Justice and Equality Movement and Sudan Liberation Movement walked out of talks this month when Khartoum refused to disarm the Janjaweed ahead of any face to face negotiations.
Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir insisted on Sunday his government could resolve the war through dialogue.
Some observers say the rebels are hindering peace efforts in the hope of outside intervention but the United Nations said both groups had agreed to “substantive political negotiations”.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said the world must act on Darfur and has not ruled out a British military role, without making clear what he meant by that.
His top military commander says he can muster 5,000 troops for Sudan, but Khartoum is refusing British or U.S. military help. Australia says it could send troops as U.N. peacekeepers. (Written by Richard Meares, edited by Mary Gabriel)