UN weighs up stopping aid work in Sudan’s Darfur

By Mark Turner, Financial Times

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 16, 2004 — The United Nations may have to withdraw from humanitarian operations in Sudan’s Darfur region if attacks on its workers continue, a top official has warned.

Sudanese security forces stand guard outside the World Food Program base in Abu Shouk camp on the outskirts of the northern Darfur town of El-Fasher.

Jan Egeland, head of the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said the conflict was costing 10,000 Sudanese lives a month, but that could rise tenfold if countries did not do more to protect aid workers and punish the guilty.

“We’re ending the year more or less how we started, with huge areas inaccessible to humanitarian workers,” Mr Egeland said. “Attacks by any armed groups will only serve to paralyse the operation.”

His comments came after two staff for Save the Children, a UK-based aid agency, were killed in South Darfur on Sunday. Jan Pronk, the UN’s special envoy to Sudan, said it appeared the attack was perpetrated by Sudan Liberation Army rebels, who are fighting the Khartoum government, although that was not confirmed.

There are 7,000 humanitarian workers in Darfur but they cannot access more than a fifth of the region.

Mr Egeland said African Union monitors were effective where they had been deployed but were still too few. Both he and Mr Pronk called for more assistance for the AU in logistics, and a generally more proactive international stance.

“Experience demonstrates that improvements in access are brought about only when there is engagement and common commitment by all actors,” Mr Egeland told UN Security Council envoys. “I encourage the Security Council to use its authority more energetically.”

His appeal came amid rising European pressure for the International Criminal Court to play a role, but Washington opposes the idea. China and Russia have argued that punishing either party does little to foster reconciliation, but critics believe they are protecting commercial interests.

Faced with internal disagreement over Darfur, the Security Council last month adopted a resolution focusing instead on a comprehensive peace agreement for the conflict in southern Sudan.

But Mr Pronk said Khartoum and Darfur rebels had misinterpreted the message. “Some in the government interpreted the resolution as softer, so they became more assertive,” he said. The rebels concluded that the only way to win attention was to fight.