Humanitarian aid bridge suspended as stocks rise

PARIS, Sep 14, 2004 (AP) — A costly air bridge that stocks humanitarian supplies in Chad for refugees fleeing Sudan’s violence-wracked Darfur region is being suspended, the French Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

At least a month’s worth of humanitarian aid has been stocked and, with the end to the rainy season, more such aid can be brought in by road when needed, a ministry statement said.

The air bridge between the eastern Chad town of Abeche and the Sudanese frontier has brought in more than 700 tons of humanitarian aid since it was set up July 30, at a cost of more than A?1.5 million (US$1.8 million), according to the ministry.

It can be reactivated “at very short notice if circumstances justify it,” the statement said.

Ethnic violence in the western Sudanese region of Darfur has forced 1.2 million people to flee their homes, some going to neighboring Chad. Some 30,000 people have been killed.

Sudan risks possible U.N. Security Council sanctions for its failure to halt Arab militias called Janjaweed, which many claim are backed by the government.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has said that genocide is being carried out by the Janjaweed.

Meanwhile, French Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Renaud Muselier was meeting Tuesday with Sudan’s deputy foreign minister, El Tijani Fidail, and the deputy humanitarian affairs minister, Youssouf Abdallah.

The two men were among a stream of Sudanese officials to visit France in recent months, something that Foreign Ministry spokesman Herve Ladsous attributed to Paris’ belief that the crisis cannot be solved without Sudan.

Meanwhile, some 200 French soldiers are continuing border patrols with Chadian troops, the ministry said.