UN says security improving in Darfur camps

KHARTOUM, August 2 (Reuters) – Security for refugees has improved in the camps of Darfur region in west Sudan, where the United Nations says the world’s worst humanitarian crisis is unfolding, a U.N. official in Khartoum said on Monday. Jan Pronk, the U.N. secretary general’s special representative to Sudan, said rebels and Arab militia fighting them were still causing insecurity in the region where the U.N. says conflict has uprooted about one million.

The U.N. Security Council has given Khartoum 30 days to disarm and prosecute the Arab militia, or Janjaweed, or face sanctions. The Darfur rebels, who launched an uprising against Khartoum in early 2003, and rights groups accuse Khartoum of sending the Janjaweed to attack non-Arab Darfur villages.

“There are still many militia around. That is leading to a great deal of insecurity. Also the rebel activities are adding to the insecurity,” Pronk said after meeting Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail.

“But security in the camps has improved.”

Human rights groups and the rebels say the government has armed the Janjaweed, whose campaign the U.S. Congress has labelled as genocide against Darfur’s non-Arabs.

Ismail said he had agreed with Pronk to set out a plan of what Khartoum could achieve in 30 days and after that.

“We have told (the U.N.) our feelings on the difficulty of the time period given and the U.N.’s response to us was that within the 30 days it is not expected that the government achieves everything but that there be progress,” he said.

The Sudanese government will draw up measures to be put into a document and Ismail and Pronk will meet in two days to discuss the draft, he said.

Pronk said Khartoum had halted a policy of returning displaced people to their villages by force.

He also said government measures criticised for slowing down Darfur relief work, such as delays in issuing travel permits, were suspended. The U.N. says two million people are in need of food and medicine in the region.

“The humanitarian work is not made difficult by government measures,” Pronk said.