UN Security Council hails efforts to end Darfur crisis
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 25 (AFP) — The UN Security Council gave a show of support to efforts by the African Union to end the humanitarian crisis in Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region.
International pressure has been mounting on Sudan over the humanitarian situation in Darfur, where Arab Janjaweed militias backed by the government have waged a deadly scorched-earth campaign against black Africans.
“Council members extended their strong support for the leading role of the African Union,” said current council president Andrei Denisov, Russia’s UN ambassador, after a meeting on the situation.
But diplomats said the council was waiting for a briefing next week from the UN envoy to Sudan, Jan Pronk, before taking any step toward action against Khartoum.
US envoy Stuart Holliday issued a firm and blunt “no” when asked if Washington had given up on sanctions, despite opposition to sanctions from council members during adoption of a UN resolution on Sudan last month.
“People are still dying and they are still scared in Darfur,” he said.
The resolution gives Khartoum until next week to show it has lived up to pledges to disarm the militias and ease the humanitarian crisis, or face international action.
Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was in Khartoum, urging President Omar el-Bashir to act immediately.
“Our collective interest is to see a safe, secure and prosperous Sudan able to live at peace with itself,” Straw said afer separate meetings with Beshir and Pronk.
“The government of Sudan has to help us to help them,” he said he had told the president. “And that means fulfilling the obligations imposed on them by resolution 1556 and voluntarily accepted by them.”
The United Nations estimates that between 30,000 and 50,000 people have died as a result of the conflict in Darfur, some 1.2 million others displaced from their homes and a further 180,000 forced to flee into neighbouring Chad.
The militias are accused of mass killing, rape and other atrocities while trying to put down a 17-month-long revolt in Darfur launched amid complaints that the Arab government in Khartoum was ignoring the region.
On day two of African Union-led peace talks with the rebels, both rebel groups rejected the agenda of the negotiations, dealing another blow to the hopes of ending the Darfur crisis.
Delegates will now return to the table on Wednesday to face the issue of the agenda after rebel leaders objected to a reference to the demobilisation of their armed forces.
The Abuja conference’s host, President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, had earlier hailed the adoption by both sides of a broad agenda of humanitarian, security and political issues as a “first step in the right direction.”