Sudan insists on right of self-defense, UN agency withdraws staff
KHARTOUM, Nov 12, 2004 (Xinhua) — The Sudanese government rejected on Thursday the demand from the local armed groups in Darfur for a ban on military-related flights while UN human rights agency decided to reduce the size of its presence in the troubled region.
“They (the local armed groups) demanded a ban on military flights only and again we told them that this was also unacceptable,” chief negotiator and Agriculture Minister Majzoub al-Khalifa Ahmed said after he returned from the talks in Abuja, capital of Nigeria.
Proposals for a “no-fly zone” over the region like those enforced over northern and southern Iraq has been dropped from the final agreement signed in Abuja on Tuesday, he said.
He said the right of self-defence for government forces has been safeguarded in the new African Union-brokered deal and the government forces will refrain from starting an offensive by land or air only on condition that the rebels ceased fire.
Meanwhile, UN envoy Jan Pronk and Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustapha Osman Ismail paid a joint visit to the Serif camp for displaced people in South Darfur State.
In Geneva, Jean-Marie Fakhouri, the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR operations director, said Thursday that the agency has decided to withdraw three of its four staff out of south Darfur in Sudan.
He accused the Sudanese government of stopping UN personnel moving around the region and restricting them to Nyala for nearly three weeks.
“If we are not going to be allowed to do our work in south Darfur, then UNHCR has no choice but to go elsewhere where the needs are just as great,” Fakhouri said.
“Thus, I have instructed our three international protection officers to temporarily relocate to El Geneina in west Darfur,” she added.