UN envoy headed to Darfur to check refugee claim

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 26 (AFP) — A UN envoy to Sudan will visit Darfur on Wednesday to check on the government’s claim that some 70,000 people displaced by conflict there have voluntarily returned to their homes, a spokesman said.

Displaced Sudanese women and children travel towards Kalma camp, near Nyala south Darfur after fleeing from their village following a Janjaweed’s Arab militia attack October 7, 2004.

Manuel Aranda Da Silva, an envoy of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan for humanitarian affairs and development, will visit El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, spokesman Fred Eckhard said.

According to estimates, some 1.5 million internally displaced people are scattered across the western Darfur region, most in squalid camps, to avoid the bloodshed that has beset the region since a rebel uprising began last year.

An estimated 70,000 people have died in the area, where the government called on Arab militias to help put down the rebellion in what UN officials have called a scorched-earth campaign against the region’s indigenous blacks.

Meanwhile, US film star and UN goodwill ambassador Angelina Jolie is due to hold a press conference in the Sudanese capital Khartoum tomorrow after a three-day visit with displaced persons in Darfur.