Sudan making some progress on Darfur – UK’s Straw
By Madeline Chambers
ABU SHOUK CAMP, Sudan, Aug 24 (Reuters) – Sudan’s government is seeking to comply with U.N. demands to end the conflict in Darfur that has killed up to 50,000 people, but more needs to be done, Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said on Tuesday.
Speaking during a visit to the Abu Shouk refugee camp in northern Darfur, Straw said the camps appeared to be safer but he voiced concern about surrounding areas and villages, which one of his officials described as “bandit country”.
“I recognise that the government of Sudan have made progress, especially in humanitarian access and camp safety and security within the camps, but people are obviously still very anxious and nervous about whether they will be safe when they go back to their villages,” he told reporters.
He said would report back to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the extent of progress made.
“The government of Sudan … has sought to comply with what has been imposed upon them. It is for Kofi Annan to judge the extent to which they have complied,” he said.
“I will also be talking to African leaders as well as other (U.N.) Security Council members so we are all in a position by the end of next week to … make judgments about whether there is sufficient progress. There is not enough progress — but (the question) is whether there is sufficient progress.”
Straw said he had talked to refugees at the camp — currently home to 55,000 people — about why they fled their homes and what it would take to enable them to return.
Straw flew to Abu Shouk from the Sudanese capital Khartoum after talks aimed at urging the government to comply with U.N. demands to end the conflict.
Straw said Khartoum had pledged on Monday to use accords signed in May with rebel groups in the south of the country as a template for peace talks over the western Darfur region. The talks are taking place in Abuja, Nigeria.
The Naivasha accords, named after the Kenyan town where they were sealed, aimed to end a 21-year war in the south. Straw said Sudan had agreed to put forward a similar idea at Abuja.
A British official travelling with Straw in Darfur described the area around the Abu Shouk camp as “bandit country” and said the militias, known as Janjaweed, were “doing what they want, where they want, when they want to the non-Arabs.”
He said Britain welcomed Sudanese government plans to deploy extra police around the camps but warned there was continuing low-level of abuse of refugees and it remained to be seen whether the new police policies would be sufficient.