Darfur MP barred from attending UN meet on Sudan rights

KHARTOUM, April 6 (AFP) — An MP from Sudan’s war-wracked western region of Darfur said that he had been barred from taking off from Khartoum airport en route to a UN Human Rights Commission meeting in Geneva.

Sudanese army soldiers patrol on camels outside the Mornay camp in western Darfur, Sudan.(AFP).

“I have gone through all travel and checkout procedures and, 15 minutes before the takeoff, a security official took my passport and told me that I was banned from travelling abroad,” MP Ali Hussein Dousah said.

He accused the authorities of “a human rights violation perpetrated against a member of parliament, entitled to parliamentary immunity and going to take part in discussions on human rights.”

Dousah hails from the Zaghawa community, one of a string of ethnic minority groups that spawned a rebel uprising in Darfur two years ago.

He said his constituents in the South Darfur state capital of Nyala “were enraged” by the travel ban imposed by the government and vowed to appeal against the decision.

The Arab-dominated regime in Khartoum unleashed state-sponsored militias in a scorched-earth campaign against the rebels, costing the lives of 300,000 people and driving 2.4 million from their homes, according to a British parliamentary report.